Tag: Website Legal Compliance

One of the worst things that can happen to a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Internet laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “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 business categories, including:

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

If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into many advertising or online marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with various legalities, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be offering online, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you may earn a financial benefit if they purchase it using your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the terms of your return policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your site includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete his 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 details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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 randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 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?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to ensure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with online.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners 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 any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop applications for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to 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 it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, 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 display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website

If your website lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

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

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may receive compensation if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets site users know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

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

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

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

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

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

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Visit this website to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with 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
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• ToS & 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 website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.

More info:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, you can keep things really simple by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

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

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your main dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 this site to learn more this handy plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over 20 customizable legal pages for your online presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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 provide no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

Plus …

• 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 above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and inexpensive solutions.

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