Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
As the digital era continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
These laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, like PPC advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
More importantly, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this article, we discuss the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. As stated above, the aim 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 governing business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider what could happen to your business if these situations were to occur:
- A customer has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website letting your site users know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you may derive financial benefits if they buy it.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
- Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are false and decide to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 cautions 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 you could easily become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s imperative to make sure that your digital presence remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must 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 required by most companies you engage with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their services and features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue with your website using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation 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 is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
Many online resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords 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, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Site
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider adding any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets users know that you are not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your readers that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to site users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs readers that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with 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 WordPress Site
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users can access legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your WP sidebar, refer to this tutorial:
Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
For more information, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (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 pages and publish or upload these to your web server as previously described.
Go here for more info:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 a few minutes with 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 – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 – WP Website Compliance Plugin
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
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 Plugin 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If using the services of lawyers to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential 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 are making money online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with all government legal requirements and any terms of service and guidelines for third-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Non-compliance 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, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.
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 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
- 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
In Addition …
- 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 above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.
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