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 has to comply with a wide range of 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 losses, but also the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and your business reputation, when you can protect yourself so easily and inexpensively?
In this article, we look at a simple and easy-to-install WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
As the internet continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your web presence is a fundamental aspect of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook and other social networks could suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a range of other advertising or merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your web properties comply with legal requirements and regulations, trust and confidence in your business may be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this 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 remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are inexpensive solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we discuss in this article.
In this article, we review a total compliance & disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based website.
Today’s WordPress Plugin Is …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
Go here to learn more: Compliance Bar Plugin
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Very Easy To Install
Compliance Bar installs like every other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Page Templates
You can easily modify the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WYSIWYG content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to help users if they experience any issues.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The plugin 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 complete library of training videos is provided.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default 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 Any Website Purpose: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Just select the legal pages you need to include in your site and ignore any unnecessary pages.
Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many features to website owners. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Show Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere on your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – 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 plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and covers your site from non-compliance.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin can record the IP addresses of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” section will be added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your information can be entered (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses shortcodes to insert the information you have entered into your User Profile fields in your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been input into the profile fields, users can then access the other plugin section.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” screen includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Here’s the complete list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating legal pages for your website is a simple process. Just select the check boxes next to the pages you want to create and click ”Save” at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default 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: Compliance Page Icons – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily modify and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing your legal templates is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in different sections of your website.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a normal “static” WordPress page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile devices, 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 will display links to your compliance pages using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to show …
PopUps
If your site publishes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
You can create an unlimited number of Pop Ups displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses in different sections of your website …
You can also specify a delay time if you don’t want a Pop Up to display immediately, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and capture 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 the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU compliance requirements …
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 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 legal pages and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Plugin Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments users have written about Compliance Bar:
”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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”Truly Amazing Product!” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Below are a few useful ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, 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 support team to help users if they experience any issues. Plugin users also get access to complete video training manuals.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Edition – Can be installed on a single domain. Price = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer License Edition – Can be installed on all sites that you own. Can be installed on all client sites as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for peace of mind.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Our Recommendation
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Note: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
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