Tag: Website Legal Compliance

If you plan to grow a successful business online, the last thing you want is to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital era continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) 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 – BBB)

These laws affect several online business activities, including:

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

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising and online marketing networks.

More importantly, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website(s) may be subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be offering on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your website become fully compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to take place:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you could derive a sales commission if they purchase using your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider also the documented examples of costly compliance breaches described:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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 websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to make sure that your digital presence is legally compliant.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

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

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

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your sites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with 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 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 by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.

Various online business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(Structure 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 create apps that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Basic Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your business keep out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

As well as the above, you may want to look into including one or more of these legal pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies users that you will derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they purchase through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Pages Content To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

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

We recommend creating a legals directory on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors can access legal information from all pages …

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

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar Menu

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste 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 add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

More info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms

Legal Page Plugins

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

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages 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. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your navigation area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)

Select from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 WordPress plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

More info:

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

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use online. Your website must comply with a whole set of regulations, some of which you may not 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

References And Legal Resources

Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet 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
• United States 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
• 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 add essential legal pages to your website.

***