One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to suddenly discover that you have broken the law.
If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant not only puts you at risk of incurring significant financial losses, but also the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?
In this article, we review a simple and inexpensive solution for WordPress users that can help make your site compliant just minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
As the cybersphere continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web apps, and you won’t be accepted into various other advertising or merchant networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could face 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 website complies with legal requirements and guidelines, visitors could lose trust and confidence in your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies!)
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that:
- Your website could be subject to various legal requirements in accordance with compulsory federal, state or local laws and regulations that govern your business (some of which you may probably not even be aware of),
- The importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be promoting or endorsing online, and
- There are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the solution that we discuss below.
In this article, we review a complete compliance and disclaimer plugin for your WordPress-based web presence.
Announcing …
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Plugin Description
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your website …
More info: Compliance Bar
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Compliance Bar to instantly make your web site legally compliant:
Easy Installation
Compliance Bar is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator account and activate.
Easy To Edit Templates
You can easily modify the default templates inside Compliance Bar from the settings menu using the WordPress visual content editor.
24/7 Support
Compliance Bar plugin provides dedicated plugin support to assist users.
Some additional benefits include the following:
- Customized Templates: The plugin will create your legal pages in seconds and customizes them to your business and website.
- Video Training Library: Compliance Bar is not complicated to use - a full library of training videos is available if you need assistance.
- Can Be Used In Every Country: As long as you consult a qualified legal representative to make sure that the default templates provided with the plugin are suitable and satisfactory for your business, country and website, you can use the plugin anywhere in the world.
- Use For Every Website Purpose: If your site is built with WordPress, you can use the plugin for any website purpose. Select only the types of disclaimers which pertain to your particular business model (e.g. affiliate or CPA marketing, business services, AdSense, AdWords, adult, medical, etc) and ignore those that you don’t need.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features
Compliance Bar offers a number of features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Display Visually Appealing Icons – Display links to your legal pages using attractive icons that can be positioned on different locations on your page. You can also upload icons of your choice.
- Display Sensitive Content – If you plan to publish content that needs to be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, tobacco, adult content, etc.), you can display pop-ups that require users to accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
- EU User Cookie Compliance – If your business is 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 your users and protects you from non-compliance issues.
- Record And Store IP Addresses – The plugin records the IP address of your visitors for future reference, just in case a visitor accepts your terms or disclaimers and then claims they didn’t.
- Shortcodes – Compliance Bar 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, (even in the pop-ups).
- Mobile Friendly – Compliance Bar has settings for displaying on mobile devices and tablets and displays mobile optimized icons automatically depending on visitor browsers.
Compliance Bar Plugin Features – Details
Once you have installed the plugin, users will then get access to a number of settings pages.
Let’s briefly review these …
User Profile
There are a number of default fields in this section where your business information can be entered (e.g. “Business Name,” “Support Email,” “Contact Phone,” “Market Niche,” etc.). Not all categories are compulsory, but some are (e.g. “Business Name,” “Registered Company Address,” etc.)
(Compliance Bar User Profile Page – Image sourced from plugin documentation)
Compliance Bar uses shortcodes to populate the information you have input into your User Profile fields in your legal pages …
(Compliance Bar Plugin User Profile Page: Shortcodes – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
Once the minimum required information has been entered into the profile fields, users can then access the other areas of the plugin.
Compliance Pages
The “Compliance Pages” section lists all of your compliance templates …
(Compliance Bar Plugin: Compliance Page Templates – Image source: plugin documentation)
Below is the complete list of templates made available by the plugin when we last checked the site:
- 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
Creating legal 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 at the bottom of the “Create Pages” screen …
(Compliance Bar: Legal Pages – 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 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: Legal Page Template Icons – Image source: plugin documentation)
Edit / Delete Compliance Pages
You can easily edit and delete your legal page templates from the “Compliance Pages” tab, just like any other WordPress page …
(Compliance Bar: Edit Compliance Page Templates – Screenshot 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. pages created before you installed the plugin).
Compliance Bar
You have many options to customize the Compliance Bar, including where to position the bar, displaying links or icon images, background colors and images, image size, specifying which pages should be included in the Compliance Bar, whether or not to display the Compliance bar on your front 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 more than one Compliance Bar to display different disclaimers on different pages, or to cover different uses throughout your website.
- The plugin allows you to display the Compliance Bar on the main page of your site, even if you are using particular WordPress themes (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 normal “static” WordPress 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 displays links to your compliance pages through a visually attractive icon bar on your site …
You have complete control over the location on your pages where you would like your compliance icons to display …
PopUps
If your site has content that should be restricted to certain age groups (e.g. content related to alcohol, ecigs, adult content, etc.), the plugin can display pop-ups that restricts access to users who do not accept your website’s terms and disclaimers.
The “Create Pop Up” tab lets you fully customize your pop ups …
(Pop Ups Section: Create Pop Up – Image source: plugin documentation)
You can create unlimited customized Pop Ups for different pages, or to cover different uses in other sections of your site …
You can also set a delay time to prevent a Pop Up from displaying as soon as visitors arrive, 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 Section: IP Log Details – Screenshot source: plugin documentation)
EU Cookies
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 …
Compliance Bar lets you manage 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 – Screenshot 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 compliance disclaimer templates and shortcodes, and lets you edit their content …
General Settings
The “General Settings” menu, gives you access to general information, such as promoting and sharing the plugin and receiving plugin updates …
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have written 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 wanted to reach out & say Compliance Bar is a truly amazing product for keeping my online marketing efforts on the right side of the internet laws. Not only does it look fantastic on my sites, it is also intuitive and robustly powerful. It is packed full of features to allow me the flexibility to control exactly what my visitors need to see and know” Patrick Mauchant – PT Enviromate Technology
Compliance Bar Plugin Tips
Here are some additional ways you can use The Compliance Bar Plugin:
- Protection against content theft by spelling out your website’s terms of use.
- Displaying compliance icons on specific pages of your site only.
- Minimize refund disputes by clearly spelling out the refund terms before purchase.
- If your website contains adult content, you can force visitors to click to confirm that they are of legal age to view your content.
Support
Compliance Bar provides users with a dedicated support team to assist users. Users also have access to a complete set of training videos.
Additionally, your purchase is backed by a risk-free, 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 hours (M – F), the plugin developers will refund twice the amount of your cost of purchasing.
Product Price
- Single License Edition – Install the plugin on one site that you own. Cost = $47 (Normally $127)
- Business Licensing – Can be installed on up to twenty-five domains that you own. Price = $67.00 (Normally $197).
- Developer – Install the plugin on multiple of your own sites. Can be installed on any client site as part of a paid service. Cost = $97.00.
Note: The cost to purchase the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here: Compliance Bar Plugin
Additional Information
Templates Reviewed By Lawyers – The plugin developers claim on their website that all legal templates have been reviewed and approved by a 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 of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Compliance Bar website.
The Bottom Line
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.
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 are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
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