One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of having broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant 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 reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising or merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to lawsuits.
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your digital properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may become an issue.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with compulsory laws that govern your business,
- The importance of remaining 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 easy solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your business become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
If your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress users that you will probably be interested in knowing more about.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress users containing over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website compliant:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides dedicated support to help you.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Can Be Used For All Website Purposes: As long as your website or blog runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you want to include in your site and ignore any irrelevant pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in no time.
- Show Attractive Icons – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If your website publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force 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 must be aware of EU compliance laws. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes that automatically populate legal pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the pop-ups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured gets added to your WordPress backend.
Let’s briefly review these sections …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your business information can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Area,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: 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 areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area lists all of your templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Last time we checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal pages 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 easily and quickly create compliance pages for your site simply by selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from 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 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: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Pages
You can customize and delete your legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal templates 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 various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device screens, 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 a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also set 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 Section: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
Compliance Bar lets you customize the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(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” tab, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials users have published about 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
Useful Tips
Here are some useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your site contains content for adult viewers, 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 plugin support to assist you. Plugin users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy 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 cost of purchase.
Product Price
- Single – Install the plugin on 1 domain that you own. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on twenty-five of your own sites. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer Edition – Can be installed on all domains that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
In Conclusion
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered websites and blogs. 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 here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You must 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 wherever your business is based.
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