These days, part of doing business on the web is ensuring that you comply with local, national, and international law. While laws can vary from place to place and by what type of website you’re running, WordPress plugins help you with those responsibilities.
While nothing here should be substituted for actual legal advice (if you have questions, ask someone whose job it is to know the answers), here’s a list of plugins to help with compliance issues, broken down by category.
Cookie Notice by dFactory
Cookie Notice by dFactory provides an easy way to let your site’s visitors know about your use of cookies. You can customize a notice that will appear either on the top or bottom of the page. Users can accept, decline or read more about your policies via clickable buttons.
Cookie Law Info
Cookie Law Info will create a customizable banner to inform visitors of your cookie policies. The banner can be automatically removed after a few seconds or you can require the user to accept your terms manually.
Auto Terms of Service & Privacy Policy
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, have created both a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy under the Creative Commons Sharealike license.
Auto Terms of Service and Privacy Policy brings these documents to your site. Simply add your organization’s info in the plugin settings and display the documents via a WordPress Shortcode. This plugin is meant for sites based in the United States.
WPLegalPages – Privacy Policy & T&Cs Generator
WPLegalPages will generate a variety of must-have compliance documents for your website. The free version of the plugin includes a privacy policy, terms & conditions, DCMA policy, and more.
Setup is simple – enter your business name and select which documents you want to generate. A cookie consent bar is also included. The pro version ups the ante with guided wizards, age verification, and popups.
WooCommerce EU VAT Compliance
Those running WooCommerce can take the pain out of VAT with WooCommerce EU VAT Compliance. It will record a customer’s location, show VAT calculations in the backend and automatically add VAT to product pricing. You can even block out EU customers if you’d rather not collect VAT at all.
EDD Quaderno
EDD Quaderno helps to make Easy Digital Downloads shops compliant with VAT and the intricacies of other locales. It will also create improved versions of the standard EDD receipts. To use the plugin, you’ll need a Quaderno account.
Age Gate
Age Gate is a highly-configurable plugin for restricting age-based content. Select the minimum age along with the content you want to protect, and underage users will be locked out.
Choose from a variety of user input methods (dropdown, text field, or yes/no buttons) and customize the look of the UI to match your website. The plugin is also SEO-friendly and won’t try to restrict common search bots.
Easy Age Verify
Make age verification simple with Easy Age Verify. The plugin offers turnkey settings based on different types of website content. It’s also built with accessibility and SEO in mind. The pro version is fully customizable, with the ability to match your site’s look.
Gravity Forms Signature Add-On
This unofficial add-on for Gravity Forms will allow users to digitally sign documents on your website. There’s also a version for Ninja Forms.
CF7Sign – Signature Field For Contact Form 7
Adding a signature field to your Contact Form 7 forms is just a click away. Once you’ve installed and activated CF7Sign, a “Sign” field will be added to your forms’ options. There’s not much room for customization here, but it’s a dead-simple solution.
Keeping it Legal
Granted, it can be a bit of a hassle to keep track of compliance issues. But that doesn’t make it any less vital to do so. WordPress plugins are there to make the task a bit easier – even automating the process in some cases.
