Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you sell or endorse?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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)
The introduction of new laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising and online merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective legal resources and WordPress plugins.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws governing your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what would happen to your business if these situations were to occur:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog informing your site users that you are an affiliate for the product you are endorsing and will derive a financial benefit if they purchase via your affiliate link.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider also the actual examples of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped 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 prohibits using software that scrapes 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the violation, 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 Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to make sure that your website remains fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must 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 a requirement of most companies you do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using their products. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your website with Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell information-based products with companies 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 in their networks …
(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation 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 is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC regulations.
You can find many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop apps that integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, 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 suspended.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Should You Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these compliance pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to visitors that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Informs your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy 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 Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer 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.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from every page …
(Display links to legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu, see this tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here to learn more:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help 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 reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes 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 around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your 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 lock down. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – 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
To learn more about the benefits of using this great plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here:
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 of Use
- 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 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 the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Visit this website to learn more:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or offering online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)