Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you promote or advertise?
Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The introduction of these new laws has legal consequences for various business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
This article explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws wherever your business is based.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
- You did not tell visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and will receive an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Your visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in a product review.
- Your website includes adult content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider now the actual examples of costly compliance breaches described:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone he does 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 does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 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 you could become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to ensure that your digital presence complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products and service. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue online with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity 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 interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations.
There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads 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 terminated.
- 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 avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site
If you suspect that your website is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help your site keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into adding any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs users that you will not receive for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you may benefit financially if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets readers know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
- 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors can access the information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer, refer to this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s 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 guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- 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 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 server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress sites worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then 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 other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when the user agrees to your terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your main navigation menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)
Select from several pre-configured 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 about this handy plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable legal page templates for your website …
Learn more about this plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, visit this website:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, 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 provide legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
Resources
Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest 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
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)