One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken a law or regulation.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, 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 your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is a significant component of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, 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 may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites will suspend your apps, and you will not be allowed into a range of other advertising and merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, it could affect your visitors trust and confidence about doing any business with you in the future.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and 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 could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may 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 offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the solution that we review in this article.
If your website falls short in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users you will probably be very interested in using.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly legally compliant:
Quick Installation
Compliance Bar installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator section and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
You can easily edit the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal 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 All Website Purposes: If your website is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out those that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin provides many unique features to website owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your website from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar Plugin
Once you have installed the plugin, you will then have 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 categories in this section where you can input your business details into entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Here’s the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked their website:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create compliance pages for your blog or website by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Templates – 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 default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
The 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily edit and delete your legal pages in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- Customizing 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
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, 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 home page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to show different disclaimers 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 a specific theme (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If your website includes content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various 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 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 EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
Compliance Bar 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” tab …
(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” section, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
***
”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Useful Tips
Here are some extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Plugin Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Can be installed on all as many of your own sites as you need. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The price of the Compliance Bar Plugin 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 or may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For demo videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. 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.
***