One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial costs, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and very inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your website fully compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital realm continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential part of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits or legal action.
At the very least, if your digital presence is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business,
- How important it is to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your website falls short in areas of compliance, we review below a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs that you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits Of Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your site compliant:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any WP plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the pre-built legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Plugin Support Team
The plugin develop provides a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits include:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in legal templates provided with 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: If your site is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of great features to WP users. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Content – If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor web browsers.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once the plugin has been installed, the plugin’s “Settings” screen is added to your WP backend.
Let’s go through these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business information can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to dynamically populate and display the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your compliance pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the website:
- 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 legal pages for your site is a simple process. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can customize and delete your legal disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing the legal templates 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
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 home 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 a number of Compliance Bars 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 particular WordPress themes (like 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 devices, there is a limit to the number of page icons you can display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured 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 the compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: 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 other sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying immediately, 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 – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Section: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance 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 receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
“1000% Highly Recommend This” Anthony La Rocca – Founder (Hustle Marketing)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your website only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish content for adult viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on a single domain. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was current when this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer 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 current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal 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.
The Bottom Line
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, 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 of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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