Tag: Website Legal Compliance

One of the worst predicaments a website owner can find themselves in is to break the law.

As the digital way of life continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence plays a significant role in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of new laws has legal ramifications for several online business categories, including:

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

Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

In this article, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and show you inexpensive resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress site legally compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Site Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you’ll do with the information you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their website.
• You have not divulged to visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re recommending that you could derive a sales commission if they buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy in a product review.
• Your site contains adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider too 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 an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. 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 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access 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 becoming a target of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence stays legally compliant.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information when using their products or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue online with your sites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell products online with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still 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 site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

Various online resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to develop apps for your site, 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 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 services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your site keep out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into adding one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies users that you will be compensated if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets users know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some way 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

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 these pages for you.

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

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)

For a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar, see this tutorial:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Website

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more information, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut and paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web 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 brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

More information:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your 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 website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

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

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this useful plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress sites with over 20 customizable compliance pages for your website …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 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 flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a legal form or lawyer.

We want your business to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a plugin - see 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 are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any guidelines and terms of service provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your website or blog must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau
• 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

See Also …

• 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 compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.

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