Tag: Website Legal Compliance

One of the worst situations a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the internet continues to grow at such a rapid pace and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is an important factor in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to 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 to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau)

The new laws affect various business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of advertising or online marketing networks.

If you are not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern online business practices, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with it.
• Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their website.
• You have not divulged to your site visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could get paid an affiliate commission if they buy it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult-related content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider too these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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 violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all you site visitors.

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

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products using places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners 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 chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered 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, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

If your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your business keep out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Website Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into including any of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Informs your readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• 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.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that users have access to the information from all your pages …

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

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar menu, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Use Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut and paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms 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 reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for each 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 server as described earlier.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

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

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

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

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your main WP dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from the admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 to learn more about using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites that includes over twenty customizable legal page templates for your online presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Legal Resources & References

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

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC 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
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• 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
• Google 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective resources and WordPress plugins.

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