One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering financial loss, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential 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 third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social sites could suspend your web apps, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising and merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, 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 terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to many legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably 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 on your website, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based site.
Presenting …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs containing over twenty customizable compliance pages for your online presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
Easily edit the pre-built compliance templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
24/7 Plugin Support
The plugin develop provides a dedicated team to help you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to make sure that the templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For All Website Purposes: If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the templates you want to include in your site and ignore all other irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Information – If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your 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 Cookie law. Compliance Bar displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record your visitors’ IP address for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – Compliance Bar is integrated with shortcodes that populate legal pages 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 or tablets and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor mobile browsers.
Plugin Features – Details
After installing and activating the plugin, users will 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 area where your business details can be entered (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the Compliance Bar plugin website, there were over 20 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
- XXX Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your blog or website can be easily done. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can edit and delete your legal templates from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Legal Templates – 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. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to display 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 main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a range of uses throughout your site.
- The plugin allows you to display a Compliance Bar on the home page of your site, even if you are using particular WordPress theme frameworks (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” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display popups that blocks access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and store the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are 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 …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage 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 sourced from 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 edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials From Customers
Here are just some testimonials plugin customers have published about Compliance Bar 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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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are some additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimizing refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content for adults only on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist you with anything you need. Users also have access to an entire library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your edition of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund double the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Software Price
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer 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-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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