Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or offering?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s important to try and stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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)
The introduction of new laws has legal ramifications for various business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, including contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising or online merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site are required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be using online, and that there are solutions that can help your website become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you advertise
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for a minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an allergic reaction.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with the details you have collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may get paid an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
- You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped 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 does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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 infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
it’s important to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to all you site users.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services
Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are required to let your site users know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will interact with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your website using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – 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. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, 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 plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your site complies with FTC regulations.
Various business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your 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 websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything online via affiliate marketing, or make money 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help you keep out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of these legal pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs readers that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you will derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all your pages …
(Display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu here:
Use Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More info:
Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – 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 search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page 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 your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more info:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs 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 installing WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you many headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your main navigation menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site menu)
Select from several pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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
Visit this website to learn more about using this powerful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that includes over 20 customizable legal templates for your online presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 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 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 hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a lawyer.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is compliant with all legal requirements and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or selling online. Your digital presence must comply with various regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.
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 provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
Legal Information
Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its 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
- BBB – 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
See Also …
- Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site using inexpensive methods and resources.
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