Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital era continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a significant aspect of your overall business strategy.
New 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, 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 (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau)
The new laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and show you simple and inexpensive resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress site legally compliant.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you use on your website
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to happen:
- A user suffers a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you could derive a commission if they decide to purchase through your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide 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 information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider too these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed 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 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 becoming targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to make sure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and 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 websites to display legal information when using their services and features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your websites with Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell digital products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
A number of sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your web site lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your website keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Informs readers that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Explains to users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu here:
Using Store-Bought Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your 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: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new 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 these to your web server as previously described.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – Plugins
As well as using copy & paste templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time.
Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- 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 your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When the user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
Select from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
To learn more this handy plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs with over twenty customizable legal templates for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 – 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your website 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 attorney-drafted legal documentation, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
References And Resources
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you 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
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- 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
- Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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