Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital economy continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
These laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website or blog are subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern businesses online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be advertising on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever you do business.
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for a minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you will do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site letting visitors know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may get paid a commission if visitors purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you because of it.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in your product review.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached at least three of Google’s policies. Although the website owners could technically be sued by Google, more than likely what could happen, is that they would be issued with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your website using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for product sellers)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.
There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop social networking applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider adding any of the following pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users know that you will not receive for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to users that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that users have access to legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Using Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
For more information, go here:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If manually setting up legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)
Select from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured Legal Templates)
Legal page templates include:
- Terms of Use (Users are forced to agree to Terms and Conditions before using site)
- Linking Policy
- External Links Policy
- Terms and Conditions
- Refund Policy
- Affiliate Disclosure
- Privacy Policy
- Affiliate Agreement
- Facebook Privacy Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- Antispam Policy
- DoubleClick DART Cookies Policy
- Disclaimer Template
- FTC Disclosure Statement Template
- Medical Disclaimer Template
- Testimonials Disclosure – As per FTC guidelines
- Amazon Affiliate Disclosure Template
- DMCA Policy Template
- California Privacy Rights Policy Template
- Digital Goods Refund Policy Template
- COPPA – Children’s Online Privacy Policy Template
- Blog Comments Policy Template
- Newsletter Subscription Policy and Disclaimer Template
- FTC Disclaimer Widget
To learn more this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
For a detailed article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin lets you easily install professionally-written legal pages such as:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Social Media Disclosure
- Medical Disclaimer
- Terms of Use
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress – Professionally-written legal forms)
Additionally:
- Drag & Drop FTC Disclaimer Widget: Add an FTC Disclaimer to any WordPress sidebar or widget area.
- Customizable EU Cookie Compliance Bar: Display an EU cookie compliance bar if you are getting traffic from the EU and your sites use cookies.
With just one-click you can install almost all of the legal pages your site needs and these professionally written legal pages can be created in your theme and/or as a standalone page outside of your theme.
The plugin developers secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Visit this website to learn more:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal templates, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your digital presence must comply with various regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources
Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau
- Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising
- Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act
- CAN-SPAM Act Guide
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
- FTC Regulatory Review Web Page
- FTC Rules and Guides Currently Under Review
- The Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force – Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework
- FTC Staff Report: Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising
- FTC Final Guides Governing Endorsements and Testimonials
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
See Also …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- Google AdSense Help – Required Content
- Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
- Google AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
- ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
- Facebook Platform Policies
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website or blog using simple methods and resources.
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