Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you promote or offer?
As the digital era continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the 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)
These laws affect various online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a whole range 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 add legal pages to your site using simple methods and resources.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated earlier, the aim of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend on your website
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to take place:
- A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you plan to do with the details you have collected.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing that you will derive a sales commission if they decide to buy via your affiliate link.
- You did not spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
- You haven’t disclosed that you were given a free copy of the product you reviewed.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider now the real examples of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ 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 breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 entirely 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 become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to make sure that your website has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site users.
Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
All the big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer 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 certain information when using their products. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue with your site with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell products online through merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website 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 unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically 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 type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
A number of business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Facebook 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 plan to promote anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
What Compliance Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Protected From Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your site keep out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies your readers that you may benefit financially if they buy through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
- 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your 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 links to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all of your pages …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
Visit this site to learn more:
Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:
- Built-in 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 a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your main dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)
Select from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 for more information about this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
Legal Suite Pro 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 & Conditions
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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 powered 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here for more info:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your website must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
Legal Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- FTC 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
In Addition …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- AdSense Help – Required Content
- Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site.
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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)