Legal & Compliance for Marketers Cheat Sheet

An orientation map to the legal areas every marketer touches, advertising truthfulness, data privacy, IP, contracts, and consumer protection, so you know when to loop in a lawyer before a campaign goes out.

How the FTC's truth-in-advertising rules actually work, what real substantiation requires before you make a claim, and what recent enforcement actions reveal about where marketers get caught.

How GDPR and the growing US state privacy law patchwork apply to ad targeting, tracking, and CDPs, not just your email list.

Why an inaccessible website is a real legal risk in 2026, the WCAG basics marketers actually control, and practical fixes for owned pages and campaigns.

What counts as a 'material connection' under FTC rules, how to write disclosure language that actually holds up, and why the brand gets sued even when the influencer is the one who forgot.

The clauses in a marketing contract that actually determine who owns the work, who pays if a campaign goes wrong, and why 'we'll sort it out later' is how disputes start.

The IP landscape every marketer navigates daily, image and music licensing, fair use, and where AI-generated content stands legally, explained without the legalese.

Learn the eight CAN-SPAM rules the FTC enforces, why 'unsubscribe' is not optional, and how a single bad send can cost over $53,000.

How cookie banners, consent management platforms, and first vs third-party tracking actually satisfy GDPR and ePrivacy, and what happens when they do not.

How the FTC treats manipulative checkout, cancellation, and consent flows as illegal deception, and what marketers need to change before the next $2.5 billion settlement.

How the Telephone Consumer Protection Act governs marketing texts, why 'just add a checkbox' is not enough, and what the 2025 opt-out changes mean for your SMS program.

Learn the difference between a sweepstakes, a contest, and an illegal lottery, and what your official rules and entry mechanics must include to stay compliant.

What triggers the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, how verifiable parental consent actually works, and what Amazon, Epic Games, and TikTok learned the hard way.

How the FTC's '.com Disclosures' guidance treats brand-published native ads and advertorials, and why 'Sponsored' has to look and read like an ad, not editorial content.

The FTC's 2024/2025 rule forcing hotels, ticketing platforms, and subscriptions to show total price upfront, and why the related click-to-cancel rule got vacated in court.

How the FTC's fake reviews rule, impersonation enforcement, and shifting 2025/2026 AI policy affect AI-generated testimonials, ad creative, and marketing copy.

Purchased, rented, and co-registered email lists are technically legal in narrow cases but practically a fast track to fines, blocklists, and a dead sending domain.

Loyalty points and 'give $10, get $10' referral rewards both carry real legal obligations, from unclaimed-property law to FTC endorsement disclosure rules.

Health, wellness, and supplement marketing sits under a dual FTC/FDA jurisdiction, and unsubstantiated claims made by influencers can still land the brand in trouble.

Facial recognition and location-based ad targeting sit under some of the toughest privacy laws in the country, from Illinois' BIPA statutory damages to post-Roe geofencing enforcement.

What marketing and comms specifically own when a data breach happens, and why the notification letter can matter as much as the patch.

Twenty US states now have comprehensive privacy laws in effect, and no two are identical, here's how to build one compliance program that satisfies all of them.

How to run a basic trademark clearance search before locking in a campaign name, tagline, or product name, and when the search results mean you need a lawyer.

Why reposting customer photos and running contests requires real rights clearance, not just a hashtag, and what happens when brands skip it.

The Lanham Act standard for comparative advertising, what makes a 'better than' claim defensible, and real lawsuits over competitor comparisons.

The real technical requirements CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL impose on the unsubscribe process, and the common violations companies commit without realizing it.

Running campaigns in the EU, UK, and Canada means more than GDPR, advertising standards bodies, language rules, and consumer protection law all change what you can say.

AI-generated marketing assets carry real, unresolved copyright risk, here's what the current litigation means for marketers and how to think about indemnification and provenance.