Yesterday, the US Supreme Court affirmed Colorado’s right to require online merchants to collect sales tax from Colorado residents who buy from them. Until now, buying online from a merchant located in anther state has required the buyer to pay sales tax directly to the state, rather than requiring the merchant to collect tax, in behalf of the state. States prefer the latter because individual payments directly to the state are a “hit or miss” proposition. The state can more easily hold a merchant accountable than it can hold thousands of individuals accountable. If other states... [...]

Thanks to Ghergich & Co. (and a special shout-out to Megan) for sharing this infographic with us for the benefit of our readers. Copyright Infringement: Images You Can and Can’t Share on Your Blog  [...]

You don’t want to get on the wrong side of the law. The regulators carry a very big stick. They can fine you, shut down your site and put you out of business for violating the law. You need compliance policies designed by a competent attorney to keep you safe. For some time now, Compliance Bar has been protecting sites around the world.. Today, until Noon PST, there is a sale that offers you its protection at a bargain price. • Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. • Compliance Bar can display... [...]

These days there are people (and some entire companies) surfing the web seeking money by “legally” stealing it from websites that don’t have proper legal documents published. They could claim you stole content from them. They could claim you are preying on children, etc. There are dozens of scams they can use, each of them potentially ruinous for you and your site. Not only that. Tthe government could also come after you for violating Federal Trade Commission regulations. Your bank account at risk. But even more, your entire company is at risk. If a hacker misuses your site to create... [...]

Doug Yuschalk, the creator, calls it “The Most Important, Vital, and Valuable Plugin Every WordPress Site”. Perhaps we must forgive a little parental pride, but he does have a point. This plugin creates the critical information every site needs, because the search engines are looking for it, and the Federal Trade Commission also expects every site to have it. The official name for the plugin is YMYL, which stands for Your Money or Your Life. The idea is that web pages affecting people’s money or their life (such as health information) are held to a high standard of consumer... [...]

Anton Nadilo & Jon Shawcross are releasing a new WordPress plugin, called Compliance Bar, to add the needed legal (disclaimers, terms of service, privacy, etc.) pages to your website easily and quickly. This new plugin goes live at 11 AM EDT today. It lets you quickly & easily assure that your business has a regulatory compliance safety net. Now, with just a few clicks of a button, you can make sure you that you have your Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, the EU Cookie Law, all Disclosures, and more properly installed on your site. Compliance Bar makes sure that every single legal requirement... [...]

Beginning tomorrow, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) will be auditing and enforcing their Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program. They want marketers to clarify to website visitors when they gather data for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA). Not only that, but also California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a bill amending the California Online Privacy Protection Act to require website privacy notices to disclose how your site responds to “Do Not Track” signals, and whether third parties may collect personal information when a consumer uses the site. Online... [...]

With Wpermit-All in 1 Licensing Solution, you can create unlimited licenses quickly and easily and encrypt your work using the built-in encryption function to strengthen your protection from theft. With this WordPress plugin, you have control over how your intellectual property is used: • Limit maximum number of licenses on a domain • Revoke a license if the buyer failed to pay or misused the code • Track all purchasers and their personal information used to buy • Integrates with Paypal for tracking your purchasers • Generates unique licensing information for each customer •... [...]

Attorney J. Scott Talbert has developed Cut & Paste Website Legal Forms to protect your website against frivolous lawsuits and over-zealous regulators. You are allowed to copy these forms on your own sites, your clients’ sites and even sites you sell. You can also use them in your e-books and reports to protect yourself from liability. Forms included are: • Anti-Spam Policy • Copyright Notice • Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers • DMCA Compliance • Federal Trade Commission Compliance • Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick... [...]

The European Union has just enacted a law requiring all websites accessed by EU citizens to notify visitors that the site may place cookies on the visitor’s computer, and then get the consent (or implied consent) of the visitor to do so before placing that cookie. You may not even realize all the cookies your site places. If you have ads on your site, for example, those ads may place cookies that you will be liable for. Do you use Google analytics? That places more cookies. In fact, the list of cookie creators is long. Sites that fail to give the proper warning and receive the proper consent... [...]