Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you endorse or sell?
As the cybersphere continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant role in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website 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 Better Business Bureau (BBB). 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 new laws has implications for several online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be selling on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you advertise
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be if the following incidents were to occur:
- A person suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
- You did not tell visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you could get paid a financial benefit if they purchase using your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your site publishes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider too the documented examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two 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 with warnings 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 you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s vitally important to ensure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you interact with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their services and product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to sell or promote online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business 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 website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of business 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 interests by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to create applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- If you have ever wondered whether “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 third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your web site falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets readers know that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers know 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 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 Website
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add links to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your WP sidebar using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
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 web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main WP dashboard section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 the plugin site to learn more this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable legal pages for your web presence …
For a detailed article about this plugin go 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 And Conditions
- 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 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 the plugin on all of your websites.
For more details, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider at least implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate 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 stated earlier, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with all government laws and regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- Google 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
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 provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group