One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Your internet presence needs to comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you are probably not even aware of.
Being non-compliant puts you at risk of suffering serious financial losses and the cost to 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 solution for WordPress users that can help make your website fully compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a fundamental component of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed into many leading advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to being slapped with a lawsuit.
At the very least, if you don’t make it clear to your visitors that your online properties comply with legal requirements and guidelines, expect visitor trust and confidence in your business to be seriously diminished.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines!)
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, state or local laws that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- How important it is to maintain compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you are promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are easy-to-install solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tool that we review below.
In this article, you will learn about a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your site.
Today We Review …
Compliance Bar – WP Legal Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital business …
More info: Compliance Bar
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Compliance Bar to make your website or blog instantly legally compliant:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Compliance Bar is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin login and activate.
Editable Legal Page Templates
You can easily make changes to the pre-built compliance page templates inside the plugin from the settings menu with the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
The plugin developers provide a dedicated support team to help users with anything they need.
Some additional benefits of using this plugin include:
- Customized Legal Pages: Compliance Bar creates your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Full Video Training: Compliance Bar is not difficult to use and an entire 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 built-in legal page templates provided in 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: As long as your website runs on WordPress, you can use the plugin for all kinds of websites. Just select the compliance pages you want to include in your site and leave out all other unnecessary pages.
Plugin Features
Compliance Bar Plugin offers a number of features to WP users. Here are just some of those:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Show Attractive Icons – Compliance Bar will display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned anywhere in your page. You can also upload your own icons.
- Display Restricted Content – If you plan to show content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult-related, etc.), Compliance Bar can display popups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is based 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 plugin displays an attractive bar that notifies users and covers your site from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Acceptance – Compliance Bar can record the IP address of your visitors for reference, just in case a user accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they haven’t.
- Shortcode Driven – The plugin uses shortcodes to automatically populate the templates with your personal information. These shortcodes also allow you to place information anywhere on your website, (even in the popups).
- Compatible With Mobile Devices – The plugin has individual settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically based on the browser being used.
Using Compliance Bar
After installing and activating the plugin, you will then get access to a number of sections where you can configure the plugin’s settings.
Let’s briefly review these settings …
User Profile
There are a number of default categories in this section where your information can be input (e.g. “Website URL,” “Registered Address,” “Location Details,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are required, but some are (e.g. “Website URL,” “Company Phone Number,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Screen – Image source: plugin documentation)
The Compliance Bar Plugin uses dynamic shortcodes to insert the information from your User Profile inside your page templates …
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Image source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required (i.e. compulsory) data has been input into the plugin settings fields, you can then access the other plugin screens.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” area includes a list of all of the templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Templates – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Below is the full list of template pages made available by the Compliance Bar plugin when we last checked the website:
- 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 compliance pages for your blog or website quite easily by simply selecting checkboxes and clicking the “Save” button at the bottom of the “Compliance Pages” tab …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Templates – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Your legal pages will then be created and added inside the “Pages” section of your site.
Compliance Bar Icons
The plugin comes with a built-in set of 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 site’s design …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Legal Templates
You can modify and delete the compliance templates in the “Compliance Pages” screen, just like any typical WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Edit Compliance Pages – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes
- Editing 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 many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, whether to show links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying 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, etc. …
(Compliance Bar Section: Create Bar – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Notes:
- You can create more than one Compliance Bar to display different icons on different pages, or to cover a range of uses in different areas of your website.
- 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 (e.g. Genesis, Thesis or WooThemes), where the home page is configured through the theme itself as a built-in template, and not as a “regular” page.
- Due to the smaller size of mobile device 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 will display links to your legal through dynamic icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like to feature the compliance bar …
PopUps
If your site includes content that may be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult, etc.), Compliance Bar can display pop-ups that blocks access to visitors who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” screen 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 various uses in other areas 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 even record the IP addresses of visitors who accept your terms and disclaimers for future reference …
(Pop Ups Screen: IP Log Details – Image source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
If you do business in the EU or display your content to visitors in the EU, you need to be aware of EU Cookie law …
The Compliance Bar 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” tab …
(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” tab, 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 Customers
Here are some of the testimonials plugin customers have submitted regarding the Compliance Bar plugin:
”When I got my hands on Compliance Bar, I knew I needed help to be compliant, but I had no idea how much danger I was in, nor did I know all of the different things I needed to be compliant. Once I installed Compliance Bar, I was able to very quickly add all the items I needed to ensure I didn’t end up getting fined by various agencies, or have my site pulled from Google. The best part is that getting it all set up took only minutes, and I know that I am far safer than I was. Compliance Bar is one of the best plugins I have used in a long time.” Ray Lane – (The Video Guy)
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”I Highly Recommend Compliance Bar” Tony Grant (Portfolio Sports)
Compliance Bar Plugin – Useful Tips
Here are a few useful ways to use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out terms of use of your website.
- Display compliance icons only on specific pages.
- Ending refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your site includes content that is deemed inappropriate for underaged viewers, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Compliance Bar Plugin Product Support
Compliance Bar provides users with dedicated 24/7 plugin support to assist you if you experience any issues. Users also get access to an entire set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a no-risk, thirty 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 hrs (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice your cost of purchase.
Software Cost
- Single – Can be installed on a single site. Cost = $37 (Normally $127)
- Business License – Can be installed on up to 25 of your own domains. Cost = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Professional Edition – Install the plugin on all sites that you own. Install the plugin on all client sites as part of a paid service. Price = $97.00.
Note: Pricing for the Compliance Bar Plugin product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing: Compliance Bar
Compliance Bar – Additional Information
Legal Page Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have already been reviewed and approved by a leading lawyer. Nonetheless, we highly recommend that you get professional advice from a qualified legal expert in your area for your own peace of mind.
For ”how to” videos showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, 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-powered websites. We recommend installing this plugin for WordPress users if you want immediate peace of mind and legal protection.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Important: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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