One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-install solution for WordPress users that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial 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 shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your apps, and you won’t be accepted into various other advertising and merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if you are not compliant, trust and confidence in your business may be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering 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 compulsory laws and regulations 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 may be offering or endorsing in your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a total compliance & disclaimer solution for a WordPress-based site.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Compliance Bar installs like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
You can easily edit the pre-built legal page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to help you with anything you need.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Customized Legal Pages: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and a full library of training videos is provided if you need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal 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: As long as your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and leave out the unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin displays links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case someone accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes that automatically populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on the web browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
Once the plugin is installed, a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured will be added to your WordPress admin area.
Let’s briefly review these …
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 Email,” “Location Details,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the user profile fields, you can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the plugin’s legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the plugin when we last checked their website:
- 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your blog or website by simply selecting check boxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Compliance Pages” screen …
(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 is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. You can purchase additional 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 modify and delete your legal disclaimers from the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – 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. pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides 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 more …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your website.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular premium themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” 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 a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult-related, 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” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even 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 your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to 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 – 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” section, lists all of your compliance templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” section, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin users have provided for the Compliance Bar plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Here are some useful ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages of your website.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content that is considered inappropriate for underaged viewers on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Plugin Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users with anything they need. Plugin users also have access to full video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hours (Monday to Friday), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single – Can be installed on a single domain that you own. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple sites that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here: Compliance Bar
Additional Plugin Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area to ensure that your site is fully compliant.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
What We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
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