Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise or endorse?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, 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 to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
The introduction of these new laws has consequences for various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including PPC advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are plugins for WordPress site owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend on your website
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to occur:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are selling that you could receive financial benefits if visitors purchase products through your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
- A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you because of it.
- You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- 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 internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 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% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk being a target of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your site with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for sellers)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been 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 plan to 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. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.
There are many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to create apps for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about 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 websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)
What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general health or medical content)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets users know that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that users have access to the information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here for more info:
Another option is to download a set of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 on your website for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.
Here are some great WordPress plugins that you may be interested in using:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your WordPress dashboard area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type menu)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WordPress 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 site to learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
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 And Conditions
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
For more details, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be protected!
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 forms, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly 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 we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with all laws and regulations and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to remain compliant 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
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
In Addition …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple methods and solutions.
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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