One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with a whole set of laws and regulations, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into various advertising or merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business could become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If your web site lacks in terms of compliance, below we review a simple plugin for WordPress users that you should know more about.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your web site instantly legally compliant:
Fast Installation
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Editable Page Templates
You can easily edit the default templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site has content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying your visitors and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record and store your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the plugin, you will then 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 categories in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Location Details,” “Company Registration Number,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 22 compliance page templates available to WordPress users:
- About Us
- AdSense Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreements
- Affiliate Disclosure
- 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 create legal pages for your website or blog quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
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 edit and delete the legal disclaimer templates in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the compliance templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you 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 where to position the bar, 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using a specific WordPress theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your site contains content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and 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 you are based in the EU 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 edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(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” section, lists all of your legal disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the most annoying parts about building out a site is to make sure it complies with the law. I always leave this part to the end because its painfully dry and boring and frankly I always just wished their was an easier way. Then I came across Compliance Bar and its literally the most versitile and brilliant plugin I have ever used. All my pages meet FTC requirements now and all I had to do was press a button! Anton and Jon..you guys friggen rock — 1000% highly recommend this!!” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your website published content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated support to assist users. You also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Product Pricing
- Single Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own domains. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Can be installed on multiple as many of your own domains as you like. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of Compliance Bar depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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