Tag: Make WordPress Site Legally Compliant

Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you advertise or promote?

As digital business continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites 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 consumer protection agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “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 has ramifications for various business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple and inexpensive methods and resources.

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As stated above, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you offer on your website or blog

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and could receive a commission if visitors buy through your link.
• You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are fake and tries 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 did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider now these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a website owner can easily be exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to ensure that your website complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information if using their products or service. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your online properties using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

A number of business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See our additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to create apps for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Legal Information Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms & Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to consider implementing any of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar

Legal Templates

You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more information, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using cut & paste templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress sites worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your site.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when user agrees to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Select from various pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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

Visit this site to learn more about using this great plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 Plugin – 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your business to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or selling online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of regulations, some of which you may not be aware of.

Non-compliance 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
• 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Additionally …

• Google 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 legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and inexpensive methods and solutions.

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