Tag: WordPress Legal Pages

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

These laws affect several online business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising and online marketing networks.

If your website is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and present simple methods to make your website or blog compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. As stated above, 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 and regulations governing online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you promote

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with the information you have collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• You haven’t informed your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and will earn financial benefits if they purchase it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of a product you reviewed.
• Your site publishes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider also these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $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, 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-picked websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two 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 with warnings 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 a business owner can easily become exposed to the risks of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to ensure that your website remains fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are obligated to let your site users know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with online.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services. This includes using services like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your website with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already 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 money-making activity 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 making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

A number of resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered 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 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your website keep out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into including any of these legal pages:

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

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets readers know that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs site users that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Explains to users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors 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.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals directory to your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

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

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

For a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets

Use Ready-Made Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.

Go here to learn more:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven websites and blogs you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – 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 need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site menu)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 to learn more about using this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

For more details, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

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 legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your website must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.

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 on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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
• 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 presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website.

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