Tag: Website Legal Compliance

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is an essential factor in your overall business strategy.

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

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of these new laws affect several online business categories, including:

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

In this guide, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and present simple solutions to help make your website legally compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if the situations below were to take place:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you will derive a financial benefit if visitors buy via your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Visitors claim that your testimonials are fake and try to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to make sure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

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 laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your website using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell products using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt 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 do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

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 Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Compliance Pages Does My Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users be aware that you were 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 satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

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

You can then easily add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In WordPress

Using Store-Bought Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Visit this site to learn more:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

You can either create a new page on your website 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 previously.

More information:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven websites and blogs worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced 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.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and 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 every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

Choose 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

Go here to learn more about using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 – 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential 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 make sure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

References And Resources

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:

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

Plus …

• 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

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective solutions.

***