Tag: Privacy Statement

One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to break the law.

As the digital economy continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely essential that you stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your web presence plays a significant role in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, 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.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of these laws affect several online business activities, including:

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

If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed into many advertising or online merchant networks.

More importantly, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple methods, resources and plugins.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if the following were to occur:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
• You have not divulged to visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will receive a financial benefit if they buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy in your product review.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider now the following actual examples 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 information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 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% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of at least 3 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 entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s vitally important to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you engage with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using many of their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue with your WordPress blog using Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information-based products via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product sellers)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, 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 plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines.

You can find many business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to 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 websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Site

If you suspect that your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to the information from every page …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer here:

• Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar Section

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Go here to learn more:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Another option is to purchase a package of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service & 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 to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as previously described.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins you may be interested in using:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you loads of headaches.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main WP dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Select from various pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Built-In 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

Visit the plugin site for more details about this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable legal templates for your site …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro 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 – 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Visit this website for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your website to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you are making money online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the guidelines and terms of service required by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. Your digital presence must comply with a whole range of regulations, many 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet 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 – 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog using simple legal resources and plugins.

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