One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with many federal, state and even local laws, some of which you may not be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering serious financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your good 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 site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental component of your overall 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 sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your website complies with all legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably 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 solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site falls short in aspects of compliance, we review below a simple WordPress plugin that you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your website legally compliant:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
Compliance Bar installs just like every WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Editable Templates
Easily modify the built-in compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the visual editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
Additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Customized Templates: Compliance Bar will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is available if you need help.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever your business is located.
- Can Be Used For Any Website Purpose: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t need.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If your website publishes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU 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. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies your visitors and covers you from non-compliance.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Features – Details
Once the plugin has been installed, you get access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s review these settings briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where you can enter your information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Business Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information you have input into your User Profile fields into your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of your legal template pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the 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
Creating legal pages for your site can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons can be changed. 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 Plugin: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can edit and delete the compliance page templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Pages – Image 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. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages should be included 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 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 various uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular theme frameworks (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), 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 using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to appear …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display popups that force users to 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 as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time interval, and capture 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 you do business in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin 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” screen …
(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 modify 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 update notifications …
User Testimonials
Here are just some testimonials that plugin customers have written about Compliance Bar Plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes content for adult viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need. Plugin users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single Site Licensing – Install the plugin on one of your own domains. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to 25 sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Licensing – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
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 lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Install The Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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