Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise or recommend?
As the digital economy continues to grow at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s absolutely vital that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these laws has legal consequences for various business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be endorsing on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend on your website
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you plan to do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and could derive financial benefits if visitors end up buying using your link.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and decide to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider too the real examples of costly compliance breaches described:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered 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 received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 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:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you do business with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell products online through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations.
Various online business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to useful resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create social networking applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, 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 - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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 policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that 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 keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to look into including any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Informs users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers 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 adding a legal directory to your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
Go here for more information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.
For more information, visit this site:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple by using a plugin.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins that you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.
Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your website.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will 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 lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your WordPress dashboard area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your 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 with products, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
You can also choose from several pre-configured legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 this site to learn more about using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable compliance templates for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 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 the plugin on all of your websites.
For more details, 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 form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your site to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal forms, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic 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 do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC 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
See Also …
- 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
We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using simple and inexpensive resources and WordPress plugins.
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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)