Is your website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are recommending or offering?
Online laws were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent someone from taking legal action against you.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. 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 – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws has implications for several online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (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 won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
If your online presence is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog using simple solutions.
Is Your Website Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote on your website or blog
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website telling your site visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may earn a sales commission if they purchase via your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you because of it.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider too the following documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction 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 private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, 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 non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords User
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information accessible to all site visitors.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your sites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell digital products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add various legal pages before your products can be approved for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site 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 still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
A number of sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages 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 provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your business keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into including any of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample/Review Copy – Lets visitors know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Another option is to download a package of legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web 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
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.
More info:
Legal Pages – Plugins
As well as using templates, you can keep things very simple by using a plugin.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type drop down menu)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WordPress 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
Visit the plugin site to learn more about this great plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 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. You can have legal pages 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).
For more information, go here:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is compliant with government laws and regulations and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of regulations, some of which you may not 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
Legal Resources And References
Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
See Also …
- Google 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
- 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and inexpensive solutions.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com