As a business owner, you do not want to learn the hard way that you are doing something illegal.
As digital business continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “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 various online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, like PPC advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
More importantly, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website using simple methods and resources.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
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 of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based in.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business if the situations below were to occur:
- A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you will do with it.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website informing your site visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you could get paid financial benefits if visitors purchase it.
- You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are false and decides to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider now the actual 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 to complete a debt reduction 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 prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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-picked websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
You need to ensure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and information accessible to all you site visitors.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services or features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your online properties using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many business resource sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(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 create social networking applications for your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online using affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into adding any of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users know that you are not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs site users that you will derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard web page format (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 folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer section of your site) so that users can access the information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar here:
Templates
You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
Go here for more details:
Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in 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 – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable 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 any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page type dropdown menu)
Select from several pre-written 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
Go here for more information about this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 – 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here for more details:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a lawyer.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Resources & References
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 its legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission 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
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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum