Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you endorse or advertise?
As the digital economy continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, 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 – BBB)
The introduction of these laws has implications for various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising or online merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website(s) may be subject to certain legal requirements according to laws that govern online business practices, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be using on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
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 make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you promote on your website or blog
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person has a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you could derive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
- Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy in a product review.
- Your website contains adult-related content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider also the real case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info 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 details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program 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 exposed to non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services
All of the big online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products and service. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your website using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell products online using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 happened in the past, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations.
You can find many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references 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)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve 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, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Pages Should I Add To My Website To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website falls short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you are not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you will benefit financially if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar using widgets, see this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here for more info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
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 pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more details:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins that you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – 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 clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)
You can also select from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs containing over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …
For a detailed article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.
For more information, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your site to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website or blog must comply with various regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.
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 legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Information
Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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
Additionally …
- 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 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 above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive methods and resources.
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com