Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you 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. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
These laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your site does not display certain 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 or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and inexpensive legal resources and solutions.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. As stated above, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you advertise
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what would happen to your business if the situations below were to occur:
- A user suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an allergic reaction.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with the information you have collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and could receive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed that you received a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider also 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 (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- 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 independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of 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 cautions or lose access 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 easy it is to become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to make sure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your WordPress site using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.
Various business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid 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 services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Site
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site should help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into adding any of these legal pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies users that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know 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.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar and footer here:
Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
More info:
Another option is to purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, 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 for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described previously.
For more details, visit this website:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites that you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you many headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes 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 a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your main navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress 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, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)
Choose from several 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
Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable compliance pages for your digital business …
Learn We have written a detailed article about this plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
To learn more, visit this site:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documents, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with government legal requirements and any terms of service and guidelines for third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
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 do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to remain 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
- Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
And …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive legal resources and solutions.
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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)