Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are selling or promoting?
Online laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. 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)
The introduction of new laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. display advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed into many advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using simple legal resources and solutions.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A customer suffers a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with the details you have collected.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may earn a financial benefit if visitors buy it.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your website contains adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider also these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how a business owner can easily become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your website remains legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their products or features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your blog using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may receive compensation if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with 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 To Your Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, 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 (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) so that users will be able to access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar, see this tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
More info:
Another option is to download a set of cut and paste website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (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 pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.
Visit this site to learn more:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- 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.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable 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 like any page on your website.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main navigation area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page type drop down menu)
Select from several pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 the plugin site for more details about this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more info:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.
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 legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with all laws and regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website or blog must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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 provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Additional Information
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC 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
- United States Copyright Office
Also …
- Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- AdSense Help – Required Content
- Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
- AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
- ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
- Facebook Platform Policies
We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)