One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to receive a notice of legal action as a result of breaking the law.
If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of suffering significant financial loss, but also the loss of 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 cost-effective WordPress solution that can help make your website legally compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
As the digital business realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence is an essential aspect of your overall business strategy.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your apps, and you won’t be allowed into most other advertising and merchant networks.
If your online business 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 you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and guidelines, trust and confidence in your business could be damaged.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-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 here.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website may be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with mandatory laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- How important it is to remain compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering or using online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your business become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your site.
Our WordPress Plugin Of The Month Is …
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin installs just like any other WP plugin. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Page Templates Are Really Easy To Edit
You can easily modify the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar provides a dedicated team to assist users with anything they need.
Additional plugin benefits include:
- Customized Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use - an entire library of training videos is provided.
- Use Anywhere In The World: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the built-in 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 On All WordPress Sites: If your website is powered by WordPress, you can use the plugin for all website purposes. Select only the types of disclaimers that pertain to your specific business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and leave out any templates that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers many great features to web site owners. Here are just some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Attractive Icon Bar – 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.
- Show Sensitive Content – If your site includes content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that require users to accept your site’s terms and 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 Cookie law. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and protects your website from non-compliance issues.
- Records And Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores your visitors’ IP address for reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims otherwise.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate compliance pages with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (including the popups).
- Mobile Friendly – The plugin has settings for displaying on mobile devices and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the web browser being used.
Using The Plugin
Once the Compliance Bar plugin has been installed, you will have access to a section where the plugin’s settings can be configured.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this area where your business details can be input (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Support Desk URL,” “Company Phone Number,” “Product Name,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Support Desk URL,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate and display the information from your User Profile into your legal page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Section: Shortcodes – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required data has been entered into the user profile fields, users can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal templates available for complying with online business laws and regulations:
- 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 website quickly and easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button on the “Compliance Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added under your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The icons can be changed. 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: Compliance Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Templates
You can easily customize and delete the legal templates in the “Compliance Pages” section, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes
- Customizing is recommended, as the pages contain generic content.
- The plugin will notify you if it detects existing similar pages on your site (e.g. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
The plugin offers various options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, icon 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 Section: Create Bar – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to show different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your site.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your website, even if you are using a specific premium theme framework (like Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile screens, 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 displays links to your legal using a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like the compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, ecigs, adult, etc.), you can display pop-ups that force users to accept your terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” area gives you complete control over the settings and wordings of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
You can create several customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover a multitude of uses in other areas of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent Pop Ups from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, set a cookie duration to prevent Pop Ups from displaying again within a specific time period, and record 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 you do business in Europe 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 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” tab …
(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 legal templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” tab, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and getting plugin update notifications …
Feedback From Plugin Users
Here are a few of the testimonials users have submitted for Compliance Bar Plugin:
”One of the Best Plugins I Have Used” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”If you are like me, you maybe have quite a few WordPress sites, all needing attention and most importantly, all needing to be on the right side of the law! I’ve tried several legal pages plugins and in pretty much every case, they let me down. They simply cause more work than they solve.To me, the answer should be simple. It should work and it should let me get on with building my site. After all, I know I NEED to do this stuff, but hey, I don’t really WANT to! So, for me, I don’t want those plugins that cause more work than they solve. Simple eh? Well now it is because Anton & John have just created this baby that is the answer to my needs. The Compliance Bar Plugin does what I need it to do then lets me get on with my empire building…Perfect!” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Useful Tips
Below are some useful ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protect against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Reduce refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If your website includes adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated plugin support team to help users with anything they need. Users also have access to a complete library of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, thirty 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 hours (Monday to Friday), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your purchasing price.
Plugin Cost
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on 1 of your own sites. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Edition – Install the plugin on up to twenty-five sites that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Can be installed on all client sites for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Please Note: Current pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Info
Legal Pages Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers state on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your peace of mind.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar Plugin website.
We Recommend
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-driven websites and blogs. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. 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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