Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you endorse or sell?
As the digital economy continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules keep changing, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence plays an important part in your 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 material gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of new laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, like pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is based.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if the scenarios below were to take place:
- A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your site letting your visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling and could receive a financial benefit if they purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped 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 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 2010 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 broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 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 being targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to ensure that your online business has the right legal pages and information displayed to all you site visitors.
Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your online properties with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for sellers)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring 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 websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide references and links to additional resources to some of these at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to develop apps for your site users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies 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 with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Pages Does My Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your web site falls short 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 keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the pages listed below if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs readers that you will not receive for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to visitors that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users can access the information from all of your pages …
(Display legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here to learn more:
Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (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 every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.
To learn more, visit this website:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- 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 lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)
You can also choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 & Conditions
- 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 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:
If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website must comply with a whole range of regulations, 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 do not offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
References And Resources
Below 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 requirements and guidelines:
- 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
- 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
Also …
- 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 provided above to quickly add legal pages to your site using inexpensive solutions.
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