Tag: Privacy Statement

As a website owner, the last thing you want to do is to find yourself breaking any laws, rules or regulations.

Online laws were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

New 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, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws affect several online business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

If you are not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number 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(s) are required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be offering online, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws pertaining to your business.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone skin rashes.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you may receive a commission if visitors buy via your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider too the following documented examples 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. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. 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 independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken 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% were in breach of 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 they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to ensure that your website or blog stays fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your site users know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires you to display legal information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your website with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product sellers)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners 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 located in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations.

Various sites provide guidelines for structuring 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 laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• 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., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online 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 include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, 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 policies)

What Legal Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your site keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs users that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets users be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Website

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

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 on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

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

(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress, see this tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page on your website 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 these to your web server as described previously.

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.

Here are some WordPress plugins you should check out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages instead …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – 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 a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then 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 lock down. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your WP dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

To learn more about using this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable legal page templates for your digital business …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 & Conditions
• 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your business to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your digital presence must comply with various 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. 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.

Additional Resources

Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States 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
• Google 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using inexpensive legal resources and solutions.

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