Tag: Website Legal Compliance

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

As the digital economy continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then 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 (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)

These laws has consequences for several business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, like contextual ads
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (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 will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re marketing that you may earn a financial benefit if they purchase through your affiliate link.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your website includes adult information and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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 randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed 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 becoming a target of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to ensure that your digital presence remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

All the leading websites and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using their products. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners 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 chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many sites that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with 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 Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop applications for your site users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, 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 to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

What Legal Information Should You Add To Your Site To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive any type of payment for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users be aware that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that users will be able to access legal information from all of your pages …

(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar and footer here:

• How To Use Widgets

Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for each 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 described earlier.

For more information, go here:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple using WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs that you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP 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 just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main navigation area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type drop down menu)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Built-In 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 this powerful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a lawyer.

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary 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, you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with all government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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 provide no legal advice on this website. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission 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 – BBB
• 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 …

• Google 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

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