Website Legal Compliance Archives - Free WordPress Tutorials For Non-Techies

If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As the internet continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential that you stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the 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 – Better Business Bureau)

These laws affect several online business categories, including:

Any type of advertising, e.g. text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
Retarget Marketing
Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
Affiliate Marketing
Product Creators
Blogging
etc.

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in many advertising or online marketing networks.

If your business online is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be advertising online, and that there are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As stated earlier, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you offer on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

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

Someone has a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
Someone steals content from your site and puts it up on their site.
You have not divulged to your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you may derive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase via your link.
You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund and return policies.
Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you.
You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of a product in your review.
Your website publishes adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up 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 from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
MLM Networker
Affiliate Product Promoter
AdSense Publisher
Product Marketer
Amazon Associate
e-Commerce Store Owner
Publisher Of Adult Content
Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to site users.

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

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

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you interact with online.

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your WordPress blog using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

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

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, 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 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 interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

Many online resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources to a number of these at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to develop apps that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

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 you most probably are.
If you plan to promote anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
If you’ve ever wondered if “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 services require you to comply with their terms of use)

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

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):

About Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms Of Use
Website Disclaimers
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to consider including any of these pages:

Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
Anti-Spam Policy
Earnings Disclaimer
External Links Policy
Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides financial content)
Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
Video/Audio 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 – Informs readers that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
Sample/Review Copy – Explains to your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
Sponsored Post – Discloses to readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

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

We recommend creating a legals folder in 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 easily add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access the information from every web page …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu here:

Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar

Templates

You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

More information:

Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Another option is to purchase a package of cut and paste website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

Anti-Spam Policy
Copyright Notice
Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
DMCA Compliance
Federal Trade Commission Compliance
Privacy Policy
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 page on your website for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

To learn more, go here:

Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates

Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you many headaches.

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your website.
Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your legal terms.
New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main navigation area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)

You can also choose from a number of built-in 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

To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites with over twenty customizable legal page templates for your web presence …

Learn more about the plugin here:

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 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 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

More information:

Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider at least implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal expert.

We want your website to be legally 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 templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your digital presence must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

Tag: Website Legal Compliance

How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site