Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or selling?
As the digital economy continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your site(s) may be subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be advertising online, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
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 on this website. As previously stated, this article is designed only 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 3rd-party companies whose products or services you offer on your website or blog
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their website.
- You did not tell your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you are recommending and could earn a sales commission if they decide to buy using your link.
- You did not spell out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are false and decides to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now the following documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken 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 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 risk being a target of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to make sure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products or service. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
Many sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See our additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(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 apps for your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- 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 you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets site users know that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Informs users that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they purchase through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Informs visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from all your pages …
(Display links to legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Using Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
Go here to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
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 these to your web server as previously described.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users you may be interested in using:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- 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 basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with 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 – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main WP dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 handy plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 Use
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro – 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. Your legal pages can be 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 sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here to learn more:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional 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 regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines provided by third-party sites that you may be promoting or recommending online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. 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 in your country or region.
Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
- 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
Additionally …
- 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
- 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 presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now