Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
As the digital way of life continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, 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.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The new laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This article explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As stated above, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you use
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if the following situations were to occur:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you will do with the information you have collected.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website telling visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting and will receive a commission if visitors purchase using your link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you as a result.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider also 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 their personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your online properties using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
Many online business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site 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)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to develop apps for your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- 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 it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will help your business keep out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to readers that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from all pages …
(Display links to your legal information to users on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
For more information, go here:
Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
- 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 page for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
For more details, go here:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of 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 mouse clicks.
- 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 like any other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your WordPress 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 WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your main dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)
Select from various pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – 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 website to learn more about this powerful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site 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 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 the plugin on all of your sites.
To learn more, visit this website:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant 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
- 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
Plus …
- 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog.
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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)