Tag: WordPress Legal Pages

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.

As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s important to try and stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website 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) Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of these new laws has legal implications for several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. pay-per-click advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and describes simple resources and solutions to help make your WordPress site compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws wherever your business is based.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for a moment what would happen to your business if the following situations were to occur:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with it.
• Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your site visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a sales commission if visitors buy it.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are misleading and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult content and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 details.
• 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 $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access 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 being a target of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product 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 Terms And Policies

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products and service. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially when using testimonials or product 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 sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of business 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 interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to develop apps that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

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

What Legal Information Pages Should I Add To My Website To Be Compliant?

If your website lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies readers that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets visitors know that you were 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 comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

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

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

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

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets here:

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Blog Sidebar Menu

Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

Go here for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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 pages and publish or upload these to your web server as previously described.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you 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 a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your WP dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)

You can also choose from several pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 site to learn more this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …

Learn We’ve written an in-depth review of this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 of Service
• 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Visit this website for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

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

Additionally …

• 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

We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple methods and resources.

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