In most of the countries, there is a requirement that the website owners must display some of the legal information on their pages. This legal information can be in the form of “terms of services”, “affiliate disclosure” etc. These documents are usually in PDF format as this file format is easily accessible. Now the PDF format can be generated easily from other file formats by using different converters like PNG to PDF converter.
For creating the legal pages, different WordPress plugins are used as the webmasters and developers are not lawyers. In this article, we have mentioned the WordPress plugins that help to create the legal pages with ease.
Why are the legal pages required?
There are different laws that apply to you depending on your visitors, your location and the purpose for which you have created the website. Let’s understand this with the help of a simple example. Consider if you are creating a website that is US based and the website is used by the children that are under 13 years. In this case, you have a legal requirement of following the COPPA. COPPA is a law which states that the privacy policy must be included by the operator of the website. Moreover, it also states that when and how to get verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and how the website operator will have to protect children’s privacy and safety online which also includes the restrictions on the marketing of children that are under 13.
Let’s consider another example. For example, if you have a business in the European Union, then you must follow the European cookie law, and also you should make your consumers aware of how information about them is collected and used online. You cannot use their information without their consent. Hence, in this way you need to abide by the rules of the country in which you are living.
If anyone fails to follow the rules of the specific area then the business will be considered illegal. The people who do not follow the legal procedure also lose the chance of reaching the big internet names such as Google or Clickbank. For example, Adsense publishers are required by Google in order to display proper legal pages on their websites for taking part in their program.
So, if you are doing business on the web, then you must ensure that you are in compliance with the local, national and international law. The laws usually vary with the type of website and location; however, the WordPress plugins can help you in fulfilling these responsibilities.
Here, we have provided a list of plugins that will help you with compliance issues. Each plugin is placed in a specific category. So, let’s have a look!
The WordPress Toolbox
EU Cookie Law
Cookie Notice by dFactory gives you a simple way by which you can let your visitors know how you are using the cookies. It allows you to customize the notice according to your choice. The notice will appear either on the top or bottom of the page. Clickable buttons are available through which the users can accept, decline or read more about your policies.
The visitors will get to know about your cookie policies with the help of a banner created by the Cookie Law Info. The banner can be customized. This banner can be removed automatically after a few seconds or you can also ask the user to accept your terms manually.
Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
You may have heard about Automattic; the company that is supporting the WordPress.com. This company has created the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy under the Creative Commons ShareAlike license. The documents are brought to the site by the Auto Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can add the information of the organization in the plugin settings and then you can display the documents via a WordPress shortcode. This plugin is used by the site owners that have a US-based website.
You can easily add the Privacy, Terms of Service and DCMA Policy to your site with the help of Guerilla’s Legal Pages. First of all, install the plugin, activate it and then the pages will be automatically generated with the name of your website and it’s URL.
EU VAT
The site owners who are using WooCommerce can lessen the difficulty out of VAT with WooCommerce EU VAT Compliance. This plugin will get a complete record of the location of the customer and will also show the VAT calculations in the backend and automatically add VAT to product pricing. This plugin will also help you in blocking the EU customers if you would relatively not collect VAT at all.
Age Verification
There are some websites that need to confirm the age of the user before allowing them to navigate through the site. Easy Age Verifier plugin allows you to set a required age; however, the default age in the US is 21 that is a legal drinking age there. When the user will open the site then this plugin will display a form for user input. You can also customize the form according to your choice.
Digital Signatures
Gravity Forms Signature Add-on is a plugin that allows the users to sign the documents digitally on the website. This plugin has also got a version for Ninja Forms.
There are many other plugins that can help you with legal pages. We hope that these plugins will be helpful to you. Most of the websites provide their privacy policies in the form of PDF as PDF files can be read easily and are more secure. If you have saved your confidential files in any other format such as JPG then we will recommend you to use any good JPG to PDF converter in order to protect your secret information.
Moreover, if you know any other useful plugin that can help the readers in managing the legal pages then please share with us in the comment box.
