Tag: Privacy Statement

If you plan to grow a successful business online, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As the digital economy continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s absolutely vital that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is an essential factor in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your web presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) are subject to legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be recommending online, and that there are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Website Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you advertise on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider what could happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to occur:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you’ll do with it.
• Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a financial benefit if they decide to buy using your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet 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 picked at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to all you site visitors.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

All the big online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are expected to let your site users know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products and features. This includes using services like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product sellers)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites 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 companies 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

A number of online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Legal Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

If your web site lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical information)
• 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 to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will be compensated if they purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review/Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then easily add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all pages …

(Display links to legal pages on all of your website’s pages)

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Blog Sidebar Menu

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website 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 web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.

More info:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page 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 a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When the user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your navigation menu …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type drop down menu)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here for more information about the benefits of using this handy plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance templates for your web presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

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 & Conditions
• 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal content, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau – 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

Also …

• Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.

***