One of the worst things that can happen to any website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
Your website or blog needs to comply with various federal, state and even local laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring financial costs, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and inexpensive WordPress solution that can help make your site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your online presence is a fundamental aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web apps, and you won’t be allowed into a range of other advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your online business is not in compliance, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-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 here.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to certain 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 remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or using in your website, and
- There are easy-to-use solutions that can help your business become compliant, such as the plugin that we review in this article.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your site instantly legally compliant:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Compliance Bar Plugin installs like every WP plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Editable Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the prebuilt compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides a dedicated plugin support team to assist you with anything you need.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a complete library of training videos is available.
- Use In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the legal 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 Niches: If your website is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the pages you need to include in your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to WP users. Here are just some of these features:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar displays links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site includes 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 website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is 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 plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your business from non-compliance.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin can record and store the IP addresses of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Using The Plugin
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you will have access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this screen where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile into your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the plugin last time we checked their 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
- XXX Disclosure
You can easily and quickly create legal pages for your website or blog simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button in the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – 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 icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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: Legal Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can customize and delete the compliance disclaimers in the “Compliance Pages” area, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing your legal pages 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, whether to display links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, specifying 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 several Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout 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 settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” 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 specified 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 the compliance bar to display …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, dating, etc.), you can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” section lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover various uses in other sections of your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want the Pop Ups to display as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing 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 Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials customers have submitted for the 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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“Don’t Risk Your Online Business” Mike Thomas (The Mike From Maine Show)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful 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 of your site only.
- Reducing refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Plugin Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist you if you experience any issues. Plugin users also have access to video training.
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 hrs (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Edition – Can be installed on a single site. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Can be installed on twenty-five sites that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Can be installed on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the product site 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 – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how-to” videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support 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 sites. We recommend downloading and installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
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