Tag: WordPress Legal Pages

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital economy continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital to try and stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites 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 agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau)

The new laws affect several business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, including display advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

Without certain 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, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

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

This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and describes simple and inexpensive ways that will make your website or blog compliant in minutes.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website telling your site visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling and may derive financial benefits if visitors purchase it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also the following actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received 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 users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program with the violation, 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 through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

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

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using their services. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your site using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products 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 will be required to add certain legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business 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 making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

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

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or using 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 include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “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)

What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

• 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 any of these compliance pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – This lets visitors know that you are not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you may receive compensation if they purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you have been 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

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

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

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) so that users will be able to access the information from all of your pages …

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar

Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut and paste 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 pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page 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.

For more details, visit this website:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WP page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog 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 checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

Select from a number of 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

Visit this website to learn more this handy plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(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 of Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro 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 websites.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to 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 stated earlier, if you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or offer online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Legal Information

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site 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
• Better Business Bureau – 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
• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.

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