Cookies and terms and conditions

Great questions, Lori! As you know, cookies are tiny bits of data that are created and stored as text files when websites load. A cookie contains information that is collected about website visitors. Cookies have different purposes, such as providing personalized user experiences or displaying ads, and depending on which plugin(s) you've installed and activated on your site, many of them may utilize cookies in order to function. Every website that collects user data should have cookie consent banners or privacy notices. Since the GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018, websites are now responsible for communicating how they collect, use, and store information by setting fines for non-compliance. So, you should create a privacy policy and notice page on your site. A privacy policy and notice will inform your visitors whether your site collects any data, and how visitors are tracked. This is simply a matter of creating a page, and entering the relevant text. Then, you can link to that page in your footer, or any navigation menu you choose. WordPress does provide a little guidance for you. If you go to: Settings > Privacy, you'll find a simple tool that allows you to specify the page you've created to serve as your Privacy page. Further, if you select the, “Check out our guide” link at the bottom of that page, you'll find a list of recommended text you can use for your privacy page, and each plugin you install on your site should automatically add their suggested text for your privacy policy content, based on how that plugin functions. You can easily copy that text and then paste it in your privacy policy page. It's important to note that I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. It is your responsibility as a site owner to ensure that you comply with the relevant applicable laws in your jurisdiction. Likewise, while the recommended text on the Privacy Policy Guide page for your site is a good starting place, it may not be fully compliant with laws in your area. We hired an attorney to create our privacy policy page, and that's obviously your safest bet. You might also consider a service like Termly.io, which not only helps you create your privacy policy and cookie notices, but also provides a bit of script you can use on your site to automatically create a pop-up notice, like you've seen on many sites. Whether you simply create a normal page in Pages > Add New, or a pop-up using a tool like Termly.io is entirely up to you. But having a privacy policy page is critical these days. Hope this helps!

Yep, that helped a lot.  Thanks!