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 the law.
Your website has to comply with a whole range of federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-use solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into a range of leading advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not compliant, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to seriously diminish.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are inexpensive solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your business become compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your digital presence.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar installs just like every other WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator section and activate.
Easily Editable Templates
Easily modify the prebuilt compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated Plugin Support Team
The plugin developers provide a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is available if users need assistance.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with Compliance Bar are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used On All WordPress Sites: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the templates you need to add to your site and leave out the irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers many unique features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Sensitive Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), you can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you do business 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 that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this area where your information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Company Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile into your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of your compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your site.
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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can edit and delete the legal pages from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. 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” 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 attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site …
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 source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU compliance laws …
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 – 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 page templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” screen, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”I got a chance to review the Compliance Bar plugin…WOW!! I have to say that its definitely one of the most NECESSARY, yet easiest to use plugin’s to hit the scene in a while. Very Solid Product. Great job Anton & team!” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users. You also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the cost of purchasing.
Plugin Price
- Single – Install the plugin on a single domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on all as many of your own domains as you like. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing details of the Compliance Bar software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Plugin Info
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. 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.
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