One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses, 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 look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial 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 withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and many other social networks will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into many leading advertising or merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws and regulations 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 promoting or using online, and
- There are easy solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the plugin that we review below.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your site.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is an easy-to-install WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your website or blog compliant:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Compliance Bar installs like every plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily edit the default compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated 24/7 plugin support to help users.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance 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 a full library of training videos is available.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal page 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.
- Use For All Website Purposes: As long as your site runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and ignore all other unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many unique features to site owners. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – The plugin displays links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be placed on different locations in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to display content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your site’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Addresses – The plugin can record and store the IP address of your visitors for 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 the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” screen is added to your WP admin area.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where you can input your business details into input (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically insert the information entered into your User Profile fields into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen lists all of the plugin’s templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of template pages made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
Creating legal pages for your site can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” in the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of attractive 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 theme …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can edit and delete your compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing the compliance pages 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 you installed 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, icon size, specifying 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 – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using particular themes (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is specifically configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, you can only select up to a certain number of page icons to display if you turn Mobile Settings “on.”
Once you have configured 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 the compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that restricts access to visitors who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” page gives you full control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create multiple Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and store 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 are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you manage the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” tab …
(EU Cookies Section: 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 disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have written about the Compliance Bar plugin:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are a few additional ways you can use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish content that is deemed inappropriate for persons below a certain age on your site, 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 team to help you with anything you need. Plugin users 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 double your purchasing price.
Product Price
- Single Edition – Can be installed on a single domain. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for Compliance Bar Plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Templates Approved By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal 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 helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Download This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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