As a website owner, the last thing you want is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has legal ramifications for several online business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website or blog may be subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be offering on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is located.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could get paid financial benefits if they decide to purchase using your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are false and try 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 didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider too the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached at least 3 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 with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how a business owner can easily be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence remains legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your visitors know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information if using their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your site with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of business 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 by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Compliance Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your web site falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general health or medical advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you are not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your readers that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets users know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know 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.
How To Add Legal Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that users have access to the information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu here:
Using Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
These templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- 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 every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 about the benefits of using this useful plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro 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 & Conditions
- 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very 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:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a lawyer.
We want your business to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal templates, or a plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
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 offer legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
References And Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- 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 – 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
Plus …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your site.
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