Tag: WordPress Legal Pages

Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you use or promote?

Online laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

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 commercial gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) 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)

The introduction of new laws affect several business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, like text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If you are not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this article, we discuss the importance of having a compliant website and describe simple methods to make your website or blog compliant.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you advertise

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

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

• Someone suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you will receive an affiliate commission if they buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms of your return policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and decide to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website includes adult content and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 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 independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to all you site users.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

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

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information when using many of their products or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your websites with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

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 has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with FTC guidelines.

Many business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon 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 been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Website

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

Adding the following legal pages to your site should help you keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Pages Manually

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

We recommend creating a legals folder in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to the information from all of your pages …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar here:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In WordPress

Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Another option is to download a package of legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 page on your website for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

As well as using templates, you can keep things really simple by using plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages instead …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your site.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your WP dashboard menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

Select from various built-in 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

Visit this website for more details about using this powerful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …

For more details, visit the plugin site 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 And Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your site to be safe!

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 templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Resources

Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog using simple and inexpensive methods, resources and plugins.

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