Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental part of your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in many advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website using simple and cost-effective legal resources and solutions.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their site.
- You have not divulged to your visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may get paid a commission if they purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many 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 randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 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 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?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to ensure that your website is legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with.
For example:
Google requires you to display legal information if using their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue online with your website using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell digital products through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote products and services using testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often 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 plan to do any type 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. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.
Many business resource sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring 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 …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create applications that will integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or using 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 provide 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, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Compliant?
If your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your site keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides content about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you will receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer here:
Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each 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 described previously.
Go here for more information:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some great WordPress plugins that you may be interested in using:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 Screen)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP 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
To learn more about this great plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable compliance pages for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro 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 Use
- 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 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.
More information:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
Additional Information
Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- 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 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
- United States 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
- AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
- ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
- Facebook Platform Policies
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.
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