One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (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 for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into a number of other advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this post.
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, we discuss below a simple WordPress plugin that you will probably be very interested in using.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your website …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site legally compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any plugin. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily make changes to the pre-built legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the visual content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to assist users if they experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the built-in legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers that suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that are not required.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, you will then get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the information from your User Profile in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 22 legal templates available to WordPress users:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure Statement
- Amazon Affiliate Disclaimer
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Contact Us
- Copyright/DCMA Notice
- Disclaimer
- Double Dart Cookies
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- FTC Statement
- Legal Disclaimer
- Linking Policy
- Medical Disclaimer
- Privacy Policy
- Returns/Refund Policy
- Support
- Terms
- Terms & Conditions
- Testimonial Disclosure
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase an additional set of icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Page Templates
You can easily customize and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create several Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific 3rd-party theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display your compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different areas of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar has a non-intrusive way of notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
Page Templates
The “Page Templates” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials that users have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated support to help you. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single User Licensing – Can be installed on a single site that you own. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. 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 in your country or region.
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