As a website owner, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have done something illegal.
As the digital era continues to grow at such a fast pace and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to try and stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your digital 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 promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of new laws has consequences for several business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, including pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and explains inexpensive methods and solutions to make your WordPress website legally compliant.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations concerning your specific business.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with it.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you will receive a commission if visitors decide to purchase via your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider now the following documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction 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 children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 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% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will interact with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their services or product features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling digital products through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 is already the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of selling 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 by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.
Many business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and 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 companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their 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 avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)
What Legal Information Should You Add To Your Site To Be Compliant?
If your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help your business keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider implementing any of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to site users that you are not receiving compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may benefit financially if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Explains to site users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs readers that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with 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 Website
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
More information:
Another option is to purchase a package of website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
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 your legal pages to your server as previously described.
To learn more, visit this site:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins that you may be interested in using:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then 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 every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main WP dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)
Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WP 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
To learn more about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
total website compliance and disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 & Conditions
- 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 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. You can have legal pages 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 websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More information:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
Additional Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require 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 – BBB
- 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
- United States Copyright Office
And …
- 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 add legal pages to your WordPress site.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now