Is your website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The new laws has implications for various online business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like inline ads, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online marketing networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple methods and solutions.
Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice about your website or business. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their website.
- You did not tell your visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you could get paid financial benefits if visitors purchase the product using your link.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your website publishes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now the following actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a massive $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 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 randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking 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 violation 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 to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and information displayed to all you site users.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information if using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your websites with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell online with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of selling 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 interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
Many online resources provide guidelines and examples 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 …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to your legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon 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 need to include 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 whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website
If your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the pages listed below if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content 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 you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from all of your site’s pages …
(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
Go here for more info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.
Visit this site to learn more:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by 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 – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then 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 or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when the user agrees to your terms.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your navigation section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Learn more about the plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
This 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here for more details:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily 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 are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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 in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
Legal Information
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 requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau
- 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
Plus …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.
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