Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you recommend or sell?
As the digital era continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant factor in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, 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 to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these laws has legal consequences for several online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and presents inexpensive ways that will help make your website legally compliant.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws governing your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you recommend
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you may earn a sales commission if visitors buy the product using your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and decides to sue you.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider also the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of 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 notices or lose access 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 you could be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services
Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services or product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products using merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is 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 unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity 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 interests by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations.
Various business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to useful resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create applications for your site users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether 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 online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have 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 and guidelines)
What Compliance Information Does Your Website Need To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides content about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the correct type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users know that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Lets visitors be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with 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 consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, 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 them for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors will be able to access the information from all pages …
(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Use Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
Visit this website to learn more:
Another option is to download a set of cut and paste website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were created 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 legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal 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 WordPress page 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 these to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to 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 checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to your 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 new menu item will appear in your navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)
Choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WP 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
To learn more this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about the plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 – 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.
For more details, go here:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.
We want your site to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic 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 do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
References And Legal Resources
Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain 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
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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
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 and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now