Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you sell or promote?
As the digital way of life continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential to stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of these new laws has implications for several business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising and online marketing networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and provides simple resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress website or blog legally compliant.
Is Your Website Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you advertise on your website or blog
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you plan to do with the information you have collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and may receive a commission if visitors end up purchasing via your link.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider now the actual examples of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $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 massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, 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?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information when using their services or product features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your site using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling digital products via ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote online using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many online business resources that can 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 …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance
If you plan to create apps for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be 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 services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these legal pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you are not receiving compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to visitors that you will benefit financially if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that users have access to the information from all your pages …
(Display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
More info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These legal 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 add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your 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
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use: includes 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 these to your server as previously described.
More info:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.
Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your main dashboard section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)
Select from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 site to learn more about using this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more details:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some form of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential 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 make money online, you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines required by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
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 are not providing legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC 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
- 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
- US Copyright Office
Plus …
- Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective methods, resources and WordPress plugins.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com