Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you endorse or sell?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone 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 the law will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection 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.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
The new laws has legal implications for various online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, including inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and shows you inexpensive methods to help make your WordPress website or blog compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever you do business.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A user suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
- 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 their personal details.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
- You did not tell your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you are recommending and may derive an affiliate commission if visitors decide to buy via your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are false and try to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you received a free copy of a product you reviewed.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received 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 prohibits using software that scrapes 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA 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 Product Or Service Online
It’s vitally important to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to your site visitors.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue online with your sites using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products via places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) 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 does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations.
You can find many sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to create social networking applications for your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using 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 shut down.
- If you have been wondering if “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 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site
If your website is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and 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 Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs site users that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs site users that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they purchase through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs readers that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all your pages …
(Display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Use Store-Bought Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Another option is to download a package of cut and paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.
More information:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes 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 the basic legal pages you need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily 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 WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will 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 site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your main navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
You have the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Type of Site drop down menu)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – 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
Visit this site to learn more about using this powerful plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress sites containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 Use
- 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 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more details:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.
We want your site 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 ready-made legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you are making money online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website or blog must comply with a number of regulations, many of which you may not even 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
Additional Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum