If you plan to grow a successful business online, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against you.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (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 – BBB)
The new laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like display advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising and online merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and shows you simple solutions to make your WordPress website compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice about your website or business. As previously stated, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you offer on your website
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and will earn a commission if visitors purchase via your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms of your refund and return policies.
- Your visitors claim your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider also these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received 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 prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet 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 chosen at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 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 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 being targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
You need to ensure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using their products. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, 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 plan to do any type 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 by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines.
Many resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(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 applications that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering whether “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 terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Does My Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into including one or more of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms (if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you’re not receiving any type of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies visitors that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) so that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as previously described.
More info:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page 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 around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your 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 every other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your WP dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
Select from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – 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 website to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
To learn more about the plugin go 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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, go here:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal page templates, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to ensure that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your website must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.
Additional Resources
Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest 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
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site.
***
"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