One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking a law or regulation.
Your digital presence must comply with a number of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you may probably not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial loss, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we review a simple and very inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
As the digital business realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is an essential aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook and other social sites will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising or merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, if your website is not compliant, trust and confidence in your business could be irrepairably.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use!)
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 may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws 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 on your website, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site falls short in aspects of compliance, here is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites you should know more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-install plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs with over twenty customizable compliance disclaimer templates for your online presence …
For more details go here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website instantly compliant:
Easy To Install
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Page Templates Are Easy To Edit
Easily edit the default legal templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to assist you with anything you need.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Pages: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - a full library of training videos is provided if users need help.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default legal page templates provided with 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 site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which suit your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore any pages that you don’t require.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar provides many unique features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icons – Display links to your compliance pages using attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms or 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 notifying your users and covering your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record & Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar can record your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – 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 pop-ups).
- Works On All Mobile Devices – Compliance Bar has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and will display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the mobile browser being used.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, you have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Email,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Duration (Days),” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to dynamically populate the information you have input into your User Profile fields in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of your page templates …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin last time we checked the 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 create compliance pages for your blog or website quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a built-in set of icons for referencing your legal pages …
Icons are customizable. You can purchase additional icons from the plugin developer, or create/upload your own to match the style of your theme …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Page Icons – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily modify and delete your compliance pages in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. legal pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin settings area provides 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 should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front 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 display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the front page of your website, 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 configured your Compliance Bar settings, it will display links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance icons to show …
PopUps
If your website contains content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to users who do not accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If your business is based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must make users aware of your user cookies and notify them of how you use them …
Compliance Bar lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” section …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” tab, lists all of your compliance pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” area, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin update notifications …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that users have submitted for Compliance Bar:
”WOW” Shon Chris – Director (JV Peer Group)
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”I wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before purchase.
- If your site published content that is inappropriate for persons below a certain age, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated team to assist you. Users also get access to video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, 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 hrs (M – F), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Plugin Pricing
- Single Site License – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional – Install the plugin on multiple domains that you own. Install the plugin on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Price details for the Compliance Bar product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading 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 ”how to” videos showing how the software 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 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 – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. 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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