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.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
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 your good reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this post, we look at a simple and cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your site fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is an essential part of your overall business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
At the very least, if you are not in compliance, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to numerous legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business,
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or endorsing online, and
- There are solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
If you suspect that your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, there is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites you may be very interested in knowing more about.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your site …
More info: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your site compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar Plugin is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Templates Are Very Easy To Edit
Easily modify the pre-built compliance page templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
Dedicated Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated support team to assist you if you experience any difficulties.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Manuals: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use and an entire library of training videos is available.
- Use In Every Country: As long as you consult someone who is qualified to give you legal advice to ascertain if the templates provided in the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use In All Niches: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and leave out any irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Show Attractive Icon Bar – The plugin will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your pages. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Show Restricted Information – If you plan to display 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 force users to accept your site’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, 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 your users and protects your business from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – Compliance Bar records the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin is integrated with shortcodes to populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your site, (including the popups).
- Works On Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices or tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically based on visitor web browsers.
Compliance Bar Features – Details
After installing and activating the Compliance Bar plugin, the plugin’s “Settings” area will be added to your WP admin area.
Let’s go through these briefly …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Refund Period,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information you have input into your User Profile fields in your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) information has been entered into the plugin settings fields, users can then access the other plugin areas.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of the plugin’s legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of legal templates made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
Creating compliance pages for your website or blog can be easily done. Just select the checkboxes next to the pages you want to create and click the “Save” button on the “Create Pages” area …
(Compliance Bar: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under the “Pages” section of your WordPress site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can easily edit and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just like any other page in WordPress …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing 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 installing the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including position, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, selecting which pages to include an icon for 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 Screen: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your site.
- The plugin lets you display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (like 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” 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 specified your Compliance Bar settings, it displays links to your legal using dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to display the compliance bar …
PopUps
If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up for different pages, or to cover various uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time interval, and even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you are based in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements …
The Compliance Bar plugin lets you manage 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 – 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” screen, lists all of your legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you modify their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, lets you access general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin users have published 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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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Plugin Tips
Below are a few extra ways to use Compliance Bar:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages of your site.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you include adult content on your website, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to access your content.
Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated plugin support team to assist users with anything they need. You also have access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% money-back guarantee. If your version of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 hrs (M – F), your money will be refunded in double.
Product Pricing
- Single License Edition – Can be installed on one of your own sites. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on 25 domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – 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. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar Plugin – Additional Information
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a lawyer. Nonetheless, we strongly recommend that you get legal advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, 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-driven websites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Compliance Bar – Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that 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 in your country or region.
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