Who are "We value your privacy"?

[the delgados]

Greetings and salutations.
Quick questions: Lately, whenever I log in to the forum, I'm getting a message asking me to okay a lot of things regarding sharing my personal information. There are several "yes or no" questions posed regarding cookies and stuff I'm not familiar with.
Given that I'm probably the biggest dimwit on the internet, I instinctively answer "no" to anything that hints towards accessing account information.
My questions are: Why do I keep getting these messages that contain a series of yes or no questions?
Also, why do some of the questions reappear saying I said yes when I said no?
Thanks in advance for your reply.

 

[King Boonen]

You keep getting them because you are saying no. It's to do with new data privacy laws. People who store your data are required to tell you what they store, what they do with it and to get rid of it if you ask them to. If you said yes a cookie would be stored on your machine saying you have accepted it and you shouldn't get the messages anymore.

 

[the delgados]

Oh man, my face is red from embarrassment.
I am a total luddite who has no clue about the internet.
Thanks

 

[King Boonen]

No worries, at least you did the sensible thing and said no to the thing you didn't understand. I've had to sort out so many problems in the past because of people blindly clicking yes to things and then claiming they didn't do it...

 

[Yingge]

It's the same story with most sites these days, accept their T&C or in many cases you cant do a thing.