Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you sell or endorse?
Internet laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.
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 must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “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)
The introduction of these new laws affect 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 you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and show you inexpensive solutions to help make your WordPress website compliant quickly and easily.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice about your website or business. As stated above, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you endorse
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person suffers a heart attack after using your online workout program.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could derive a financial benefit if they buy it through your link.
- You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider too 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 information to complete an offer they were promoting. 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 details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk 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 randomly-chosen websites, 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% 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 notices 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 risk becoming a target of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s imperative to ensure that your online business remains legally compliant.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading websites 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 business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information if using their services or product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense policy requirements)
Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale in their networks …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
A number of online resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide access to your 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 plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, 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 if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site
If your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms (if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you are not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you will receive compensation if they buy through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will 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 To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) so that visitors can access the information from every web page …
(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar, refer to this tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
To learn more, visit this website:
Another option is to download a package of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- 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 information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- 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 fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your terms.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your WP dashboard area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
You can also choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 – 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, go here:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal expert.
We want your site to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with all government laws and regulations and any guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, some 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet legal obligations:
- 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
- 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
Additionally …
- 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
- Google 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website.
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