Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are recommending or selling?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against you.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau)
The new laws has legal consequences for several business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, including contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and list simple and inexpensive methods that will make your website legally compliant quickly and easily.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following incidents were to take place:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
- You have not divulged to visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re marketing that you could receive an affiliate commission if they buy it using your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims that your testimonials are false and tries to sue you.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider too 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 (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction 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 children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business is legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with 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 engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using many of their products and features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your blog with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to 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. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Wording 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 develop social networking applications that integrate with your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, 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 are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets 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.
Adding Legal Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that visitors can access legal information from every page …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
To learn more, visit this site:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
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 the pages to your web server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress 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 every other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature is added to your WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)
Choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 website for more information about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
For more information, go here:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some type of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documents, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, 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, we are not lawyers and we offer no 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 all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal 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 stay compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau
- 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
In Addition …
- 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 WordPress website or blog.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now