Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you promote or advertise?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of 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 legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. 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)
These laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including PPC advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, 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 close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising or online marketing networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and describe inexpensive methods that will help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws governing business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you promote
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone steals content from your site and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your site making visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you will get paid a financial benefit if visitors decide to buy via your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
- Your website includes adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider too 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 his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- 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 details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 entirely to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
You need to ensure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your websites with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell digital products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …
(Policy requirements product vendors selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of selling 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 ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many online resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with 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 the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations 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 as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide 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, 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, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the pages listed below if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking 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 (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors know that you will not receive for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Ready-Made Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here for more info:
Another option is to download a package of cut & paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates)
Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
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 web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.
More information:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple using a plugin.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes 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 Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content 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 the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your WP dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)
You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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
Go here to learn more about using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documents, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party sites that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
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 do not provide legal advice on this website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Additional Information
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to comply and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC 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
- US Copyright Office
And …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website.
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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)