Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has legal ramifications for various business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, like contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated earlier, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose services or products you use on your website
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of the following scenarios were to happen:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you plan to do with it.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
- You have not divulged to your site users that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and could earn a sales commission if they buy via your affiliate link.
- You did not spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider too the real examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required 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 massive $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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. 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 websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 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 you could be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all you site visitors.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products online using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies 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. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional 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)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you plan to develop apps that will integrate with your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, 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 terminated.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Compliance Information Should I Add To My Website To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing any of the pages listed below where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users know that you are not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets readers know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Content To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard 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 folder using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Use Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Another option is to download a set of cut and paste website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.
Go here to learn more:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using copy & paste templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site menu)
Select from several pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 to learn more about using this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs with over twenty customizable legal templates for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 Use
- 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. 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here to learn more:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a legal form or lawyer.
We want your site 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 ready-made legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your website must comply with a wide range of regulations, some 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
Additional Resources
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission 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
See Also …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive legal resources and WordPress plugins.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)