Is your website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you offer or promote?
Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
These laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be recommending online, and that there are solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is based in.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if any of the following scenarios were to take place:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with it.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making your visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may earn a commission if visitors buy via your link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your site includes adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider too 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 personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking 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 cautions 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 become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence stays fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using many of their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue with your sites using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for selling via their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create apps for your site users, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general information about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs readers that you’re not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies visitors that you may benefit financially if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Informs your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legals folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then add links to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users have access to the information from all of your pages …
(Display links to legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Store-Bought Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
For more information, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses 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 easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your 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 & 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 page on your website for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered websites worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written 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 – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- 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 lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site menu)
Select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress 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
For more information about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 Service
- 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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.
More info:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Additional Resources
Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend 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 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
- US 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple methods, resources and plugins.
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