Privacy Policy

This is your one-stop resource to compile a Privacy Policy for your blog, with a little cut and paste. I am a WordPress girl – no lawyer! This is not legal advice. I hope to help you by offering a starting point for your privacy policy. If you get sued, it’s not my fault!

If you’d like a printable policy, completed for you – skip to the form here. Complete the blanks and a text email will be sent to you along with a PDF version. Yes – its completely free.

WordPress 4.9.6 includes a privacy tab and a Privacy Policy template.  It also has new tools to export or erase users data! We’ll go over that another time. Today we’re covering the creation of that Privacy Policy and making sure that it complies with the Cookie Law. First – an easy way to group cookies together for easy handling.

WHAT KINDS OF COOKIES DO I HAVE?

The most common classification system for cookies, was proposed and developed by The UK International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC proposes these four classes of cookies:

  1. Strictly Necessary Cookies
  2. Performance Cookies
  3. Functionality Cookies
  4. Targeting/Advertising Cookies

STRICTLY NECESSARY COOKIES

“These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies services you have asked for, like shopping baskets or e-billing, cannot be provided.

PERFORMANCE COOKIES

“These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works. [emphasis mine]

FUNCTIONALITY COOKIES

“These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance…  these cookies can be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

TARGETING/ADVERTISING COOKIES

“These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

Having such a classification makes it easier for us, as bloggers, as well as visitors to our sites. We can now explain how we handle cookies in groupings, instead of each individual cookie – which gets technical and long-winded. To help with the explanation of the cookies in groupings, I’ve written some examples that you can include in your blog’s privacy policy.