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 having broken a law or regulation.
Your internet presence must comply with a wide range of laws and regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of incurring serious financial losses and the cost to your reputation. Why risk your money and 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 site fully compliant just minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
As the digital realm continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules are constantly changing, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is an integral aspect of your business strategy.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party 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 shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your apps, and you will not be accepted into most other advertising and merchant networks.
If your web presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
At the very least, without making it clear to your visitors that your site complies with all legal requirements and regulations, visitors may lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Legal Disclaimer: 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 the laws that govern your business (some of which you may not even be aware of),
- The importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are offering or using online, and
- There are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugin that we discuss in this post.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business.
Let’s Review …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable legal templates for your online business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar Plugin to instantly make your web site compliant:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Compliance Bar Plugin is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Easy-To-Edit Compliance Page Templates
You can easily edit the built-in compliance templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
Dedicated 24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide dedicated support to assist you.
Some additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Customized Compliance Templates: The Compliance Bar plugin creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Complete Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full 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 legal templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin wherever you are located.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your website or blog is driven by WordPress, you can use the plugin for every website purpose. Just select the legal pages you want to include in your site and ignore irrelevant pages.
Features
Compliance Bar offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations in your pages. You can also upload your own icons.
- Show Restricted Information – If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
- EU Cookie Compliance – If you do business in the EU or display your content to EU visitors, you need to be aware of EU compliance requirements. The plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies visitors and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Records & Stores IP Acceptance – The plugin records and stores the IP address of your visitors for future 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, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and can display mobile optimized icons automatically depending on the browser being used.
Features – Details
Once the Compliance Bar plugin is installed, you get access to various settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these pages …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this screen where you can enter your business information into input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Address,” “Contact Phone,” “Niche Market,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Contact Name,” “Registered Business Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
The plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to populate the information from your User Profile fields inside your legal templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen: Shortcodes – Image sourced from 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 screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the legal pages …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – Image source: plugin documentation)
When we last checked the plugin website, there were over 20 legal page 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
- Adult Content Disclosure
You can create legal pages for your website or blog quickly and easily simply by selecting checkboxes and clicking ”Save” at the bottom of the “Create Pages” section …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside your “Pages” section.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin is installed with a default set of attractive icons for referencing your legal pages …
The Compliance Bar 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 Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Page Templates
You can customize and delete your compliance disclaimer templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just as you would any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Legal Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Tips
- 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. compliance 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, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, icon size, selecting which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your main page, which pages the Compliance Bar will display in, mobile settings, and offset distance …
(Compliance Bar Screen: Create Bar – Image source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create multiple Compliance Bars to display different icons on different pages, or to cover various uses in other areas of your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the home page of your website, even if you are using a specific theme framework (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or Woo), where the home page is configured through the theme settings as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” WordPress 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 will display links to your compliance pages through a visually appealing icon bar on your site …
You have full control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance bar to be featured …
PopUps
If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. information related to alcohol, tobacco, dating, etc.), you can display popups that force users to accept your website’s terms or disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab gives you full control over the settings and customization of your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Screen: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create more than one Pop Up displaying on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website …
You can also set a delay time if you don’t want Pop Ups to display immediately, set cookie durations to prevent Pop Ups from displaying 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 Screen: IP Log Details – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 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” 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 templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit the page content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials and comments that customers have published about the 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
Useful Tips
Below are a few extra ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protecting against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons on specific pages only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out refund terms before purchase.
- If you publish adult content on your site, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Plugin Developers provide users with a dedicated support team to assist users with anything they need. You also get access to complete video training.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 200% refund guarantee. If your copy of Compliance Bar does not work within 30 days of purchase and it cannot be fixed within 48 business hours (M – F), your purchase price will be refunded in double.
Software Price
- Single Site Personal License – Can be installed on one domain that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business License Edition – Install the plugin on twenty-five domains that you own. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional License – Install the plugin on multiple of your own domains. Install the plugin on any client site for payment or part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Price details for Compliance Bar can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information: Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Additional Information
Legal Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers assure users on their website that all legal page templates have already been reviewed and approved by lawyers. 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 a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
Install This Plugin
Compliance Bar is an easy-to-use, simple and cost-effective solution for WordPress-powered sites. We recommend installing this WordPress plugin if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. 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 in your country or region.
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