Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you 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 Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. 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)
The introduction of these laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
More importantly, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be selling online, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you endorse
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and will get paid an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and decide to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your site includes adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider too the documented examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $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 marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies 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 litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your websites using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add certain legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
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 flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often 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 selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
Many resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the references and useful 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)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to create social networking applications for your website users, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or making money 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 - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Should You Add To Your Website To Be Protected From Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider adding any of the following pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets readers know that you’re not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you will benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Lets visitors be aware that you have been compensated in some way 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.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website
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 adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add links to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) so that users can access legal information from every page …
(Display legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer, refer to this tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here for more info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates)
These templates 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 details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website 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 that came into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- 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 website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.
Go here to learn more:
Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 check box and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)
Choose from several pre-written 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 this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over twenty customizable compliance pages for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro 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 powered site. You can have legal pages 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.
For more details, go here:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software 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, you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for third-party sites that you may decide to promote or recommend online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way 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 your website may require 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
- Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
- 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
Also …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site.
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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