My investigative work on PayPal and other processors; the FTC and the SEC is a lot of research, Advertising Laws of 2009; Can-Spam and more. Some of these laws intersect with local and state laws for running an online business.
It is your responsibility to check them out and make sure you are not breaking local laws as well as online laws.
It is your business you are building, running and must be accountable for. If you do not have a business plan, get one and fast. That goes for affiliates as well. You need to know the legal sites. Those are the ones that pay because they do not ask you to do something illegal to earn the income you will never get.
Business Plans vs Accomplished Goals
Read a comment made by a long-time experienced marketer and I could not agree with him more.
Rich Taylor: “ It is past time to start expecting ‘business owners’ to actually ‘run’ a business!”
Comments like that can hurt. So does the truth. Many so-called businesses online, are simply cash cows and shams.
The Trouble With PayPal
These kind of ‘troubles’ are catching so watch out for them.
Examples: One-armed bandits come under the gaming laws. Got a licence? Then get it off your site. It is a totally different venue than Traffic Exchanges even if you are only giving away credits or ctp.
PTC and any of those programs. Again, they come under different statutes and you have a ton of accountability there that is best served – do not use them! Do not use them especially mixed with Traffic Exchange sites. Or open a separate business to run them.
That also goes for renting or buying referrals. That action belongs with PTC etc with their own form of legal set up. Again, including PTC is beyond the scope of a TE.
PTC inclusive is one of the major reasons why so many Traffic Exchange owners have been hit by PayPal.
Terms of Service Privacy Disclaimers Digital and Child Protection Claims
WATCH your TOS! Those terms or lack of them are dynamite! If you have copied someone else’s terms, get out of dodge or get your own.
EVERY site is different. You are supposed to be unique. Therefore MY TOS is not your TOS. Choosing how you will pay and who you will pay – 1. Better be legal by consumer laws. 2. Better be properly written up in your TOS.
Disclaimers are Laws. to be written in a legal manner that first and foremost protects the consumer/client/subscriber who may either spend money with you or receive money from you. And determines Child Laws.
Those hyped up claims that their ‘three years old can understand the model or their 8-yr old is making $$bucks$$ using it, are there to grab the naive.
Business Models Where Trust Can Hurt
A lot of TEs out there are built on a combination of actions that may or may not be legal by inclusion. By themselves; by being set up in an appropriate business model, they can meet consumer laws and community laws as well.
For some business owners, that can mean a very sick feeling. There can be a need to clean up the whole current business model. That is certainly not a fun proposition. However, unless you want it all closed down, face fines and worse, then it is time to get serious and get busy taking a hard look at what you have and STOP looking for easy outs like blaming PayPal.
The hurting time comes when you trust someone to build your website business who is not concerned at all with the laws that will govern your operations or is just plain ignorant of the law. In either case, you have a choice. Make sure you do not allow what you know is not legal.
If you are an illegal operation, changing to payza or any other form of payment processor will NOT save your business. `
Multi-Business Under ONE Payment Processor Account
One other touchy area? This for you multi-program owners with all your business operations under one payment processor account? Change it and fast.
Each part of your business needs its own payment account and set up. If you do not have separate accounts for each, if you run into a problem with ONE business that calls for suspension. then ALL your sites will be under that same suspension.
Kill The Messenger
Keep in mind, I am not a lawyer. I am only the messenger in respect to what I have found and will carry out publishing updates on FransFranticMarketing under Due Diligence. It will take time and time is not your friend right now. So please, for your sake, make sure the people you are listening to are LEGAL – like a good business lawyer, your bank manager and your accountant. Each one covers particular areas. Do not ask them to put their business on the line by expecting them to have all the answers.
Nor should you expect to run a legal and profitable business if what you are doing is spaghetti marketing. You need the proper advice. You need the right support when something goes haywire. Just like you would turn to a good tech person to clean up code errors, you need the right legal people on your team now to keep you out of trouble and on track for your business future.
If you are in the business to create income then you come fully under the Advertising laws of 2009 Under the Can-Spam act which is more than spamming. And ANY payment processor you intend to use will also be under those same laws thus can at any time suspend business operations with you.
Due Diligence
Before you take an action that could hurt your business, investigate the payment processors you think will do the best job. Don’t be surprised to find their history is full of legal messes they too had to clean up. Knowledge is power if you ingest it and follow the rules of the Law not the rules of the game. They can be two very different bedfellows.
NOTE** As I find the appropriate laws and statutes covered in this overview, I will create anchor links to them from within this article. Keep in mind, some of those laws may be added to in your community, state, province or country. Check them out and act appropriately.
© 2016, Fran Klasinski. All rights reserved. on republishing any parts of this post, you must supply a link to the original post
