One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
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 business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your website compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a significant part of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into various advertising and merchant networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(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 cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are easy solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress websites that provides a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly compliant:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like every WP plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin user login and activate.
Easy To Edit Compliance Page Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated support to help you.
Some additional benefits of this plugin include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and 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 templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Any Website Purpose: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any templates that are irrelevant.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is 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 displays an attractive bar notifying visitors and covering your site from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you will get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information inside your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 22 legal page templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 quickly and easily by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can modify and delete your legal disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using 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 bar …
PopUps
If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that force users to accept your site’s terms and 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 for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot 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 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” screen …
(EU Cookies Screen: Manage Settings – Image 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” area, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials From Plugin Users
Below are a few of the testimonials customers have published about the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”You wouldn’t drive a car around without insurance…so don’t RISK your online business by neglecting a simple, but important detail: website compliance. Grab your copy of Compliance Bar & protect yourself today!” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Compliance Bar – Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- End refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before customers purchase.
- If your site includes content for adult readers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need. Users also get access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 business hours (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single site that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on all of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Information
Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Get This 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 Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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