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 a law or regulation.
Your digital presence must comply with a whole set of laws and regulations, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising and merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are inexpensive plugins for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites that provides a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install and simple-to-use WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable legal disclaimers for your online business …
Learn more here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the built-in templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help you if you experience any problems.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Niches: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you need to include in your site and leave out any unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site publishes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, users get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your information into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section contains all of your page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance page templates made available:
- 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
Creating compliance pages for your website or blog is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can easily edit and delete the compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin indicates if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and more …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your website publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar has a non-intrusive way of notifying your visitors and covering you from non-compliance.
Page Templates
The “Page Templates” area, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are just some testimonials and feedback plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist users. Plugin users also get access to full video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 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 hrs (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of the purchasing price.
Plugin Price
- Single Edition – Install the plugin on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own sites as you like. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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