Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you sell or endorse?
Internet laws and regulations were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure 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 – Better Business Bureau)
The new laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your web presence is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this article, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and present simple methods that will make your site compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to occur:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you will get paid a financial benefit if they end up purchasing using your affiliate link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider also these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received 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 prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in violation of 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 broken 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 cautions or lose access entirely 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 become exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s vitally important to ensure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
All the leading websites and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services or product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your online properties with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell digital products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for selling digital products via ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to 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. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to your legal pages …
(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue 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 whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website
If your web site falls short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help your business stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical content)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users know that you will not receive for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may be compensated if they purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Informs your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in 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 legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
For more details, go here:
Another option is to download a package of cut & paste legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new page on your website for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as described previously.
More info:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some plugins for WordPress websites that you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you many headaches.
Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will be added to your main dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
Select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
Go here to learn more about using this powerful plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
This 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 Service
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates 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 do any type of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service for third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its 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 – BBB
- 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
And …
- 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 this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com