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 having broken a law or regulation.
Your website or blog has to comply with a wide range of federal, state and even local laws and regulations, some of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and easy-to-use WordPress solution that can help make your website compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into most other advertising and merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it very clear to your visitors that your website complies with legal requirements and regulatory guidelines, it could impact on your visitors trust and confidence in doing future business with you.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here.
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,
- How important it is to be compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing on your website, and
- There are easy-to-install 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 complete compliance & disclaimer plugin for a WordPress-based website.
Introducing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Learn more about this plugin here: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast Installation
Compliance Bar installs just like any other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Easy To Edit Compliance Page Templates
Easily edit the built-in legal templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu with the visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin develop provides dedicated support to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Page Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin will create 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 available if you need help.
- Can Be Used In All Countries: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to ascertain if the legal page templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Can Be Used For All Niches: If your website or blog is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the templates you want to add to your site and ignore all other irrelevant pages.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to website owners. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages in the form of attractive icons that can be placed anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Sensitive Information – If you plan to publish content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in Europe or display your content to visitors in the EU, you must be aware of EU Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar notifying users and covering your site from non-compliance.
- Records And 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.
- Shortcodes – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site or blog, (including the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area gets added to your WordPress dashboard.
Let’s review these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to automatically populate and display the information from your User Profile inside your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the user profile fields, you can then access the other sections of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section includes a list of all of the plugin’s legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 compliance pages available to WordPress users:
- 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 create legal pages for your website quite easily simply by selecting check boxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added to the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates from the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin notifies you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. compliance pages created before installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying 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 home 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 unlimited Compliance Bars to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in other areas of your site.
- The plugin lets you display a Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme (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” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays 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 to display the compliance icons …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), the plugin can display popups that restricts access to users who do not accept your terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area 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 for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses throughout your site …
You can also specify a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from appearing again within a specific time period, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Section: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in Europe or display your content to EU visitors, you must be aware of EU Cookie law …
The plugin lets you edit the settings for compliance with EU User Cookies requirements, including the wording of your notification message and link text in the “EU Cookies” area …
(EU Cookies Screen: 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” area, lists all of your compliance disclaimers 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 getting plugin updates …
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials that customers have submitted regarding 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 to use Compliance Bar:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out your refund terms before customers purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with dedicated plugin support to help users. You also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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), your cost of purchase will be refunded in double.
Software Cost
- Single Site License – Can be installed on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License Edition – Can be installed on all as many of your own domains as you need. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Please Note: Pricing details of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Info
Legal Page 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 strongly 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 showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
Get This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend downloading and installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Note: 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 to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
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