Is your WordPress 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 promoting or offering?
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
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 commercial gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The introduction of these new laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t let you list digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising and online merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
In this article, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and inexpensive legal resources and solutions.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose services or products you use
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to happen:
- A person suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and may earn a commission if they purchase via your affiliate link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
- Your visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose that you received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your site contains adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider too these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required 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 they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting 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% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken 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 they had infringed, 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 litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and information accessible to all site visitors.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue online with your site using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products via places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements digital product vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website complies with all FTC regulations.
There are many business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to create applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Compliance Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Informs visitors that you will receive compensation if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users 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 satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer 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 Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that users can access legal information from all your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These templates 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 legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms 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 regulations 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 on your website for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described previously.
Go here for more info:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP 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 – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog 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 any other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your main navigation menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site drop down menu)
Choose from various built-in 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 the benefits of using this great plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your web presence …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
For more information, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission 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 – 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
- US Copyright Office
And …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website using simple and inexpensive solutions.
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