Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of new laws has implications for several business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising or online merchant networks.
If you are not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective methods, resources and WordPress plugins.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you advertise
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A person suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their details.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own site.
- You haven’t advised your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling that you may get paid financial benefits if they buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Your visitors claim your testimonials are false and try to sue you.
- You did not disclose that you received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
- Your website includes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking 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 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 cautions 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 you could be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your online business is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
All of the big online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will interact with.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your sites with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site 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 unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often ends up with 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 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 by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with 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 develop apps that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site
If you suspect that your website is falling short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider including any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general content about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you will not receive compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
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 adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all pages …
(It’s important to display legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
For more information, go here:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web 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 accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- 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 on your website for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any WP page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content 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 lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your terms.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your navigation menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)
Select from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 this useful plugin, visit this site:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress sites that contains over twenty customizable legal page templates for your web presence …
Learn We’ve written a detailed article about this plugin 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 & 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some type of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to 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 stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website or blog must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
References And Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet 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 – 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
- United States Copyright Office
Plus …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site.
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