A snoring man. Photo credit: Jordon http://flic.kr/p/8pZ8

The background

Snoring can raise cancer risk five-fold. That’s according to recently released epidemiologic evidence which has found that snoring and other types of ‘sleep disordered breathing’ (SDB) can deprive the body of enough oxygen for hours at a time. This is a risk to health as, according to the scientists, having low blood oxygen levels can trigger the development of cancerous tumours, by promoting the growth of the vessels that feed them.

The US researchers used data from a 22-year-long sleep study involving 1,522 subjects and found that those with severe SDB were 4.8 times more likely to develop cancer than those who had no such problems. Those with moderate SDB were at double the risk, while those with only a slight problem had a 10 per cent increased chance, according to the group, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The results were presented on Sunday at the annual conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Francisco. They will be published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The researchers found that the more severe a person’s breathing problems at night, the greater the likelihood of dying from cancer.

Another alarmist health scare? Fraid not

“This is really big news,” Dr. Joseph Golish, a professor of sleep medicine with the MetroHealth System in Cleveland who was not involved in the research, told The New York Times Well blog. “It’s the first time this has been shown, and it looks like a very solid association,” he said. The blog noted that researchers ruled out the possibility that the usual risk factors for cancer, like age, smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and weight, could have played a role. “The association between cancer and disordered breathing at night remained even after they adjusted these and other variables,” said the blog.

Sleep apnea’s impact on health

Sleep apnea, the most common type of sleep disordered breathing problem, is already known to be associated with other health problems including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, reported The Telegraph. The new research marks the first time that sleep apnea has been linked to cancer in humans.

Great, another thing to worry about at night!

“Snoring is disturbing for any number of reasons, not least of which is that it makes you very hard to sleep next to,” said Jezebel, which said the new findings “obviously suggests the value, which was already pretty well-established, of getting treated for sleep apnea and other sleep breathing problems. But in the meantime, this will give us all something to worry about as we try to fall asleep while attempting to will our bodies to maintain an open airway at all times during the night.”

Searching for the silver lining

Dr Javier Nieto, who led the study, said “the diagnosis and treatment of SDB in patients with cancer might be indicated to prolong survival,” reported The Telegraph. Other scientists quoted in the The New York Times Well blog speculated that treatments for sleep apnea like continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, which keeps the airways open at night, might reduce the association.

More on health scares

• Another reason not to eat red meat: Heart disease
• Deadly airborne bird flu virus
• Yoga can hurt (yes, really)
• Arsenic in apple juice?

Scientists stage mock funeral for the Death of British Science at Downing Street. Photo credit: https://twitter.com/#!/Dr_PaulC

The background

On Tuesday, a protest group of around 100 people, including Nobel laureates, mathematicians and organic chemists, staged a mock-Victorian funeral in Westminster to proclaim the “death of British science”, the BBC reported.

The group, Science for the Future, are protesting because they feel that this government is giving priority to science that can be quickly taken up by industry and has an “obvious payback” at the expense of basic scientific research, reported the BBC. They also disagree with the way the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has modified funding processes in line with science spending cuts by the Government. The group compared the EPSRC’s process of decision-making to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s.

But is British science really dead? Or are these just a few scientists complaining for no good reason?

EPSRC ignoring scientists, protesters complain

The Science for the Future campaigners believe they are being repeatedly ignored by the EPSRC. One of those scientists involved in the protest said on his blog, Sheer Lunacy, that ‘‘so far EPSRC has ignored offers to engage and hold a meaningful dialogue to discuss these concerns.’’ In their letter to the Editor of The Telegraph, the group said that the EPSRC has been ‘‘manipulating the processes of peer review’’ and ‘‘establishing favouritism schemes’’.

EPSRC dismisses protesters’ claims

In their press release issued Wednesday, the EPSRC, said that in making these changes, they  ”engag[ed] with the community, and us[ed] expert advice from our strategic advisory teams and others’’. The Council also used its Twitter account to refute a number of the protesters’ claims, including that it “prioritises applied over blue-skies” research, declaring that “discovery-led research receives 60% of our funding”.  An EPSRC spokesman also told The Times Higher Education that there was ‘’a danger in thinking this group is representative of the whole country’’.

EPSRC not so bad, says scientist

Scientist Sylvia McLain, who is EPSRC funded, posted on her blog, Girl, Interrupting, that whilst she agreed with some of the protesters’ worries, she also feels that the government has an obligation to fund industrial science as well. Moreover, the EPSRC might not be the party to blame here: “Everyone that I have interacted with at EPSRC has been very positive (and worried) about what is going on with funding cuts – they are, after all, the people having to administer these cuts. I am not saying I unilaterally agree with all of their decisions, but in my experience they are available for a dialogue about these issues.”

Protest not the right way to engage on science and government

Many sources are criticizing Science for the Future for the way they went about their protest. Mark Henderson in The Guardian wrote: ‘‘Mock funerals and comparisons to Stalin are not the right way to go about this [and] will do nothing to change the minds that matter’’. Henderson noted, however, that it is important that ‘‘those of us who care about science … find a stronger political voice’’. The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) said in a statement that whilst ‘‘It’s good to see Science for the Future mobilising researchers to have their say’’, the protest is ‘‘distracting from the wider challenges facing publicly-funded research’’. Professor James Wilsden from Sussex University, in The Guardian, dismissed the protest as ”sour grapes from a few research groups who consider themselves to have lost out’’, whilst Sylia McLain said in response to the group’s Stalin comments: ‘‘I understand you are in fear of the ‘death of science’ but Stalin killed real people, which is much worse than spending cuts on anything’’.

The way forward: Unity

Many voices are also calling for the groups to unite in order for science to develop. CaSE said in their statement that: ‘’We’re not sure all avenues have been explored here, and we’d urge EPSRC and Science for the Future to engage constructively over these issues’’ to create a ”united front”. For their part, a Science for the Future campaigner said, ”I hope that EPSRC change their attitude and sit down with the community to work these problems out’’.

More on science and education

• Everything will kill you: Science reporting too alarmist, says Anthony Lewis
• Is science important to the UK?

Google: About to launch Knowledge Graph

The background

Google has announced on its official blog that it will launch a new feature for its search engine – the Knowledge Graph. It will “help you discover new information quickly and easily.” The Graph will be based on over 3.5 billion facts about relationships between 500 million objects. It comes in the same week, reported The Telegraph, that rival search engine Bing has announced that it will give information based on users’ social connections. Google’s aim is to make search engines more human. The new service will appear for users in America this week. “Things, not strings”, is the buzz phrase. Commentators agree that it is a huge step forward – but will it bring up the usual privacy issues?

“We’ve always believed that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want. And we can now sometimes help answer your next question before you’ve asked it, because the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for,” said Amit Singhal on  the Google blogpost.

Google Knowledge Graph will provided added depth

The reasoning behind it, said Amit Singhal on the Google blog, is that until now, search engines have been “matching keywords to queries” – for instance, [taj mahal]. But now, thanks to Google, the search engine will be able to guess whether you’re talking about “the world’s most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician.” It will be able to link subjects, and to give useful summaries of appropriate facts concerning a search, giving more breadth and depth to searches.

What search results from Google's Knowledge Graph will look like

More time, more money

The new method, said Matt Warman on The Telegraph, might mean that users will spend “more time on sites where Google derives revenue from advertising.”

A welcome change – but what about privacy?

Jared Newman on the PC World blog said that for “users sick of social search, the company’s renewed focus on improving core search is a welcome change.” And this is why they changed their privacy policy, said Christopher Dawson on ZDnet. It may have “irked” a lot of people, but we’ll now see if it actually “adds value.” Google’s approach will most likely “bring up all of the same privacy concerns.” The fact is, we rely on the internet more and more, for everything “from movie reviews to relationship advice”, so we need “a really well-formed query.” And nobody bothers questioning Bing about privacy, do they?

Ask any question you like

And soon, said Wired, Google will be able to answer questions like “Which governors of Western states have become president in the last 50 years?” This is a “tremendous change.” TechCrunch suggested one might also like to ask a question such as “Where can I attend a Lady Gaga concert in warm outdoor weather?”

More on the internet

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• Facebook and the loneliness question
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• Is the internet breeding hate?

The evolution of the iPhone. Photo credit: Yutaka Tsutano http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivyfield/4731067396/

The Background

Rumours are swirling around Apple’s hotly anticipated iPhone 5. The technorati are busily wading through the mass of speculation to get some sense of what to expect from the new device.

But Apple fans have been here before: in 2011, iPhone 5 rumours came to nothing after CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 4S instead.

Prepare for launch in October 2012?

“One should always take each rumor with a dram of delight and a soupcon of skepticism,” wrote Chris Matyszczyk at CNET. The most consistent rumour is an October launch date, so that at least looks likely. Other than that, say Matyszczyl, the rest is hype and speculation: “The Machiavellian in me — he really ought to get out more — delights in imagining Apple’s management encouraging employees to offer rumors to media members in return, say, for an extra day off every two years.”

Or will it be June 2012 and a radical redesign?

“We reckon it’s most likely to be shown off at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Event (WWDC), which usually takes place in early June – even if the focus of the 2011 event was software,” said Dan Grabham at TechRadar. Grabham pointed to rumours that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was heavily involved in developing the new device as a possible indication that the iPhone 5 will be a “radical rethink”: “The fact the iPhone 4S was so similar to the iPhone 4 suggests that Steve was working on something pretty special before.”

Taller screen and ‘liquid metal’?

There are rumours that the iPhone 5 will be made of ‘liquid metal,’ wrote Emily Price at Mashable: “A mix of several different metals, LiquidMetal could allow the phone to be more durable. Light like plastic but durable like aluminum, it would also allow the phone to weigh less and have a thinner profile.” At MacRumors, Eric Slivka examined speculation that the new device will have a 4-inch display, with increased height and the same width: “A taller display could allow Apple to add one more row of icons to the iPhone’s home screen.”

Industry analysts: Rumours damaging Apple profits

“Apple (AAPL – NASDAQ) is warning investors that returns for the current second quarter will be lower than projections, triggering widespread and feverish speculation that the fall-off is due to swirling rumors about an early summer launch for iPhone 5,” reported John Cox for PC Advisor. According to Cox, some analysts believe Apple fans are holding back on buying new iPhones in anticipation of the launch of a new device.

Will the iPhone 5 be made of wood? Watch an Apple parody ad below.

More on Apple

• iPhone 4S: What you need to know
• Apple in China factories controversy
• Apple to issue dividend

The Time cover: Extended breastfeeding sparks controversy

The Background

A Time magazine cover showing a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son has provoked a storm of controversy – not to mention squeamishness in some quarters.

The shot is for a feature in the magazine by Dr Bill Sears on “attachment parenting”. But instead of opening a debate about parenting methods, the photo of 26-year-old Jamie Lynne Grumet has most commentators talking about the highly-charged issue of breastfeeding.

“Breastfeeding, which is both natural and encouraged for women who are physically able, has become taboo in some corners of American society,” wrote Brian Balker on a Guardian blog. Earlier in the year, Facebook was targeted by “lactivists” for apparently removing photographs of women breastfeeding their children.

So does the Time cover challenge attitudes, or is this just publicity-seeking sensationalism?

Normalising extended breastfeeding

There are those who see breastfeeding a three-year-old as “child molestation”, said Jamie Lynne Grumet on a Time Q&A blog: “But people have to realize this is biologically normal.” Extended breastfeeding may not be socially normal yet, but Grumet hopes to change attitudes:  “The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture. That’s what I’m hoping. I want people to see it.”

Picture may overshadow real issue

“I worry that the provocative nature of the pose will actually obscure some of the real issues surrounding breastfeeding in this country,” wrote Stephanie Hanes in The Christian Science Monitor. Hanes pointed out that a recent Save the Children report put the US in last place out of 36 industrialised countries in terms of supporting breastfeeding.

Shock tactics that do nothing for mothers

The problem is not that the picture shows a woman breastfeeding her toddler, said Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon; it’s the way the editors have framed the debate that has caused such uproar. “The entire Time cover story is framed in a way to make the viewer be simultaneously repulsed and aroused,” wrote Williams. “Congratulations, editors. You’ve added to our already rampant cultural dismissal of motherhood as a kooky cult.”

Just stop lecturing parents

Theory-following parents can use whatever child-rearing techniques they want, wrote Karin Klein in The Los Angeles Times, “as long as everybody else doesn’t have to hear about it all the time. Especially those of us who are finished with theories and are settling for just doing what seems best each day for each individual child.”

More on parenting

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• Gender-based abortions offered
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Asteroid mining - could it solve the world's fuel problem? photo: midwestnerd

Space, the final frontier. Especially if you think about frontiers as places with natural resources primed for exploitation.

This week, Planetary Resources, a group of investors – including Google’s Larry Paige and Eric Schmidt and director/explorer James Cameron – announced a multi-million dollar plan to mine asteroids for minerals and water. Crazy talk? Not at all, they say – and some people agree.

What do they want to do?
Planetary Resources wants to investigate mining asteroids for minerals, such as gold and platinum, and the chemical components of fuel, on the observation that such resources are thinning on the ground here on Earth and that asteroids, the bits of planets that didn’t make it, are bound to be full of them. In addition, water harvested from asteroids, the group suggests, could be offered to space stations – to “fuel the in-space economy”, the company claimed. Calling asteroids the “low-hanging fruit of the Solar System”, Planetary Resources aims to investigate those “fruit” in the next 18 to 24 months developing and selling robotic spacecraft armed with telescopes, before moving onto mining platforms in the next five to 10 years. “Asteroid mining may sound like fiction,” the company’s website proclaims, “but it’s just science.”

Is it possible?
Yes – for a price. As the BBC noted, some scientists questioned whether asteroid mining is a cost effective solution for dealing with Earth’s resources crunch and, rightly so: A recent study by NASA, in partnership with Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) at the California Institute of Technology, found that asteroid mining is feasible, but at a cost of around $2.6 billion. That would be to harness the asteroid and bring it into high lunar orbit to extract all the goodies out of it, Leonard David, Space Insider columnist for Space.com explained. But, among the other benefits the study pointed out would be defensive – offering information and perhaps direction on how Earth could deflect a large asteroid that might want to come too close (for reference, see Armageddon, below).

And it could make a mint
Planetary Resources definitely thinks the cost will be well offset by the profits, the Christian Science Monitor noted: The company’s founder told the paper that a 30-meter long asteroid could contain as much as $25 billion to $50 billion worth of platinum at today’s prices.

Humanity needs to get off this planet
Sure, it may sound like science fiction, but, Dan Gillmor, on his On Digital Being blog at The Guardian, applauded the Planetary Resources team for thinking big: “I want them, and others who will surely join the chase, to succeed for the sake of humanity itself.” Not just for the rewards of asteroid mining itself, but for what it promises, he said – “humanity’s escape, once and for all, from its risky reliance on planet Earth as our only home”. He continued, “It is becoming more and more obvious that the species needs to get off the planet, and soon, to colonize other parts of our solar system and beyond. When and if we do it, mining asteroids will be an integral part of the process.”

But is it ethical?
Mike LaBossiere, writing at Talking Philosophy blog, was excited by the possibility but worried about the ethical implications of asteroid mining – specifically, about sharing the resources once they become available. Space mining is a costly endeavor and, he wrote, “Naturally, the folks who lack the resources to compete will end up, as they always do, out of luck and poor.”

Remember the 1998 disaster flick, Armageddon? This is just like that. Except different.

More on space and its perils

• Giant, cunning space lizards may rule other worlds
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Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally: Hitting the G-spot?

Scientists have found the elusive “G-spot”, the erogenous zone in women that many claim exists. Or at least, Dr Adam Ostrzenski, a researcher at the Institute of Gynecology in St Petersburg, Florida, says he’s found it after doing an autopsy on an 83-year old Polish woman, 24 hours after she’d been killed by a blow to the head.

He says that inside the vaginal wall lurks a sac, in which you will find a structure – a membrane, white in colour, that acts as a blanket, and underneath that is a “bluish grape-like cluster” which Ostrzenski claims is the G-spot. His findings are published online. However, another doctor, Amichai Kilchevsky, at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, has reviewed 60 years’ worth of studies into it and concluded that it does not exist. Other scientists remain unconvinced. It was only one dissection, and one body, after all, though Ostrzenski claims to have seen similar structures in living people. The world remains, largely, unconvinced.

The G-spot gets its name from the sexologist Beverly Whipple, who wrote about it in 1982. As The Guardian’s Pass Notes put it: Do say: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!” Don’t say: “Left a bit, right a bit …”

There’s a more serious point. You may have already seen the flaw in Dr Adam Ostrzenski’s research, said a sceptical Joan Smith in The Independent. You see, he used a corpse, and most research into the G-spot has been on women that can actually breath. To Smith, it’s “always seemed … a weird obsession.” Isn’t it rather “tasteless” to do this “research on a murder victim”? Isn’t it “also rather pointless”? Women already have “an organ of sexual pleasure” – it’s “called the clitoris.” Why bother looking for “something else?” Well, men are afraid of the clitoris – look at the mutilation that still goes on in the Middle East (see Mona Eltahaway’s piece about misogyny and Arabs.) “And if it seems a stretch to talk about FGM and the G-spot in the same breath, maybe that’s because we still haven’t acknowledged the power of female pleasure – or the fear it evokes. Forget the G-spot and penis envy. Guys, it’s time to talk about the clitoris.”

At least it isn’t easy to find. Gosh, the terminology of the G-spot is “curiously unarousing,” said Laura Barton in The Guardian. But whether or not it exists, it’s true that we don’t know very much “about women’s sexuality.” If we can only find the G spot, then we can “draw a map, light the route, flag the way.” But isn’t this “a little dispiriting”? Female desire is as powerful as male – but it’s aroused differently. If the G-spot was easy to find, then the world would “be a very drab place indeed.”

Make of it what you willy. Ulrika Jonsson on The Sun suggested that ladies might like to draw out the “tiny sac-structure” on a piece of paper – “it actually looks like a small penis — make of that what you willy…” She suggested that the G spot did not in fact exist. In fact, “as highly unlikely that there is a little area no bigger than the size of half a fingernail downstairs in my undercarriage which could be the key to unleashing the inner erotic beast in me.” Martin Daubney, also on The Sun, suggested that it was now going to be much harder for men, who will have “to slavishly pursue” it “until we all die of exhaustion trying.”

More on sexual issues

• Sex and the Secret Service
• Boris Johnson pulls anti-gay ads
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This cow does not have mad cow disease - yet. photo: Meneer Zjeroen

Back in the1980s and 1990s, the big scary health bugbear was bovine spongiform encephalopathy – better known to popular culture as “mad cow disease”.

Now that a case of mad cow disease has been detected in a dairy cow in California, the US’s first case in six years, the media are airing fears that the dreaded beef-borne illness is back. But what exactly is mad cow disease? And what does it do?

The California case. The disease was detected in a dead dairy cow in California, US authorities announced Tuesday, rushing to reassure importers and consumers that there is no threat that meat from the afflicted cow could enter the food supply chain and affect humans. Even so, some retailers in South Korea, one of the world’s largest importers of American beef, temporarily removed US beef from their shelves. It was the fourth case of mad cow disease ever found in the US and the 23 case in North America – 19 cases total have been found in Canadian-born cattle.

What is mad cow disease? Mad cow disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a progressive neurological disorder of cattle believed to be caused by “an unusual transmissible agent called a prion”, according to the American Centers for Disease Control. It is believed that the disease occurs when a normal prion protein mutates into a pathogenic, or harmful one, though, the agency added, “The nature of the transmissible agent is not well understood.” The infection will cause the appearance of spongy lesions on the brain and spinal cord. The disease takes years to develop in cows, and as such, it’s mainly older cows who exhibit symptoms, which can include the inability of the animal to stand up. But once symptoms appear, it is usually fatal within weeks.

What does it do to humans? In humans, the disease seems to manifest as a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and very fatal human disease that causes the rapid deterioration of the brain, attended by mood swings, motor function impairment, loss of the ability to care for one’s self. More than 150 people worldwide, the majority in Britain, have died from contracting the disease, possibly through consuming tainted meat.

Worried about mad cow? Experts say there are lots of other things that pose greater risks to the food you eat: apne.ws/InjELk -MS

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 26, 2012

When was it first detected? The first cases of mad cow disease surfaced in Britain in 1986 (battering the country’s already poor reputation for hamburgers). The disease was eventually detected in around 184,000 cows, resulting in the slaughter of 4.4 million in an effort to curb the infection’s transmission. It is believed, according to the World Health Organisation, that the source of the disease was cattle feed made from infected bovine tissue, likely brain, spinal cord, or digestive tract – meaning that feeding cows other cows was not a good idea. The disease has since appeared in small numbers in Europe and as far away as the Falkland Islands; many of those cases were in cows imported from England.

What are governments doing to protect against mad cow? Mad cow disease is shockingly resilient – the offending prions are able to survive cooking, radiation, even autoclaving, normally used to sterilize lab equipment. As such, governments have tried to cut it off at the source: Since 1989 in the UK and 1997 in the US, cattle feed prepared with bovine or other ruminant (sheep, for example) tissues has been banned. The US Department of Agriculture also placed a ban on cattle importation from infected countries. So far, so good, but, The Washington Post noted recently, the California case has highlighted what some consider the “weak link” in the US beef supply: “the lack of a mandatory system to trace the path a cow takes from farm to fork.”

What about the economic impact? In the more than two decades since mad cow first appeared, the worldwide beef industry took some serious knocks. In 2003, for example, the first US case of mad cow prompted a $3 billion drop in exports after Japan, then the world’s top importer of US beef, halted beef imports. Japan re-instated importation two years later, but the damage was done.

More on health scares

• Another reason not to eat red meat: Heart disease
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Is your bed fresh and clean or a haven for mites? photo: MAZZALIARMADI.IT

How often do you change your bed sheets? Be honest. Is it really once a week, as experts advise?

According to The Daily Mail, a new survey by QVC has revealed most Brits change the bed every three weeks – with one in six leaving the chore for over a month.

Sleep deprivation. “The shock figures may explain why three-in-four adults (75 per cent) describe themselves as sleep deprived, as experts believe that a clean bedroom is an essential part of a good night’s sleep,” reported Maysa Rawi for The Daily Mail. And apparently there are regional differences in the bedroom hygiene stakes: “Yorkshire folk clean their bed sheets just once every four weeks, while North Easterners have the cleanest sheets in the country, changing their bedding every fortnight.”

US habits. But it isn’t just the British who are slapdash over sheet changes. In the US, “many people go three weeks, a month or more”, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Why bother? The consequences of not changing bed sheets regularly are not suitable for the squeamish. “Mites accumulate, along with their feces. But there is also animal hair, dander, fungal mold, fungal spores, bodily secretions and bacteria. Also: dust, lint, fibers, particulates, insect parts, pollen, soil, sand and cosmetics,” pointed out the WSJ.

Don’t panic. However, WiseGeek suggested a measured approach is best. While the ideal is once a week, “if you don’t have terrible allergies from dust mites, and your bed sheets aren’t soiled, it’s not likely to cause huge problems if you wait a little longer to change sheets.”

Need some tips on bed linen changing? Check out the video below.

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The only cookies that are exempt are those “strictly necessary for a service”, such as the cookies used by Amazon or Expedia for their shopping functionality. Even these sites will need to take steps to comply if they use cookies to track users, or to gather management information.

The fact is if your site uses Google Analytics to track visitors, then you are impacted by this law.

Most businesses are either unaware of this directive or are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach hoping that the odds of being prosecuted first out of over 3 million businesses are slim. The fact is if your site uses Google Analytics to track visitors, then you are impacted by this law.

Rather than burying your head in the sand, it is time to start preparing. The guidelines from the ICO are a good place to start. Speak to your web developers to find out what type of cookies your site uses and what solution they recommend to obtain consent.

There is certain to be a conflict between the desire to collect as much information as possible from visitors to a site and not deterring people away. In order to achieve true transparency, all websites should be designed with the user’s privacy top of mind. In the current economic situation businesses can ill afford a £500k fine. Therefore, don’t be a test case – take action now.

Mike Kneller, author of this post, is the Technical Director at bss Digital. Read more about the Cookie law at bss Digital here.