Cookie consent laws come into force this weekend

Some websites, such as online shops, store information 

in cookies to make things easier for return visitors.

Websites will be required by law to ask users what data they are content to have stored about them online from this weekend.

The new EU legislation requires websites ask users for their 'informed consent', and will divide the type of consent into different categories.

A new code of conduct, introduced by the London office of the International Chamber of Commerce, aims to help businesses comply with new EU legislation which comes into force on Sunday. Breaches of the code could cost companies £500,000.

Although the majority of websites in the UK and across Europe will not conform to the new rules, British authorities have said that they will help rather than prosecute companies that are seeking to obey the rules.

The legislation will introduce four new categories for cookies, which the ICC suggests will be identified with four icons.

The Information Commissioner (ICO) had given British websites a year's grace period to comply with the new legislation, which expires this weekend.

The ICO has recently clarified that websites can rely on "implied consent" for some aspects, so long as sites are satisfied that users understand the overall terms to which they have agreed.

The ICO's Dave Evans wrote in a blog post that sites "should not rely on the fact that users might have read a privacy policy that is perhaps hard to find or difficult to understand.In some circumstances, for example where you are collecting sensitive personal data such as health information, you might feel that explicit consent is more appropriate".

The regulations distinguish between cookies that are ‘Strictly necessary’ for a website to function; those necessary for a site to monitor its ‘performance’; cookies that add ‘functionality’ such as remembering a password; and ‘Targeting Cookies’, which collect several pieces of information about users’ browsing habits.

On the launch of the new Guide at a Government event in Whitehall, Stephen Pattison, CEO of ICC UK, said: “Educating consumers about cookies and their uses has to be the first step in complying with the new EU rules”.

The new guide includes suggestions for how websites describe what they are asking for in the simple language the EU demands. It acknowledges, however, that some cookies will fall into multiple categories.

Mr Pattison said that the process may become simpler as consumers become more aware of how their information is being used.

The Information Commissioner’s office welcomed the launch of the guide. David Evans, Group Manager for Business and Industry at the ICO, “We have always been clear that organizations need to provide visitors to their website with enough information to enable individuals to make an informed choice on whether they wish for cookies to be placed on their device.”

An ICC official said the aim of the new guide was to provide compliance with EU regulations without disrupting current practices. The ICO has already said that it will not be actively investigating sites unless complaints are made, in part because a number of sites, run by both business and government, are expected to miss the deadline.

Although major sites and ISPs support the measures, Robert Bond, of law firm Speechly Bircham, said “Whilst the ICO has made it clear that he, Christopher Graham, is not going to have his team expending effort to investigate all websites, he will take interest in websites that are non-compliant particularly where on investigation the website owner has done nothing to get compliant with the law.

The ICO is unlikely to impose the full monetary penalty of £500,000 for the most serious breaches, but there is no doubt that many websites, where user trust is essential, will need to take steps to engender that trust by being transparent about the use of cookies and also educating consumers to the fact that the majority of cookies are good and not anywhere near as bad as the law appears to make out." 

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WikiLeaks launches encrypted social network

 

Backers of the whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks recently launched Friends of WikiLeaks (FoWL), an encrypted social network for like-minded individuals. “Friends of WikiLeaks is a network of people from across the globe who defend WikiLeaks, its people, its alleged sources and its mission,” the website’s homepage says. “We publicly and privately promote WikiLeaks and individuals and organizations aligned with the mission of WikiLeaks. This site will help you to join with people like you in your area and across the world. You will make new friends and new allies, care for treasured values and fight in common cause.” Instead of having users find people to friend, as is the case with Facebook and Google+, Friends of WikiLeaks will assign users 12 friends each, six of which will be from a similar geographic location, and six others from other parts of the world who speak the same language. If a group is assigned an inactive user, the group can boot the user and the service will automatically assign a new “friend” to the group.

Link to site

Read

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A ketchup bottle that pours like milk

 

A radical new bottle design could spell the end of stuck ketchup forever.


A MIT University team came up with LiquiGlide, a 'super-slippery' coating which makes the insides of the bottle so frictionless that the sludgy goo inside just slides out like water.

The results are astonishing - and any burger and chips fan out there should prepare to be amazed.

MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith and his team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group spent two months devising a solution.

Burger fan Smith said: 'We were really interested in - and still are - using this coating for anti-icing, or for preventing clogs that form in oil and gas lines, or for non-wetting applications like, say, on windshields.

'Somehow this sparked the idea of putting it in food bottles - it could be great just for its slippery properties.

'Plus, most of these other applications have a much longer time to market - we realised we could make this coating for bottles that is pretty much ready. I mean, it is ready, as you can see.

'We had a limited amount of materials to pick from - I can't say what they are, but we've patented the hell out of it.'

Naturally, the team had to research their market before getting to work.

Smith, who is is pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering and a minor in entrepreneurship, and already holds nine patents, told the FastCo website: 'It was never really a personal pain point for me, but I do hate struggling to get sauce out of the bottles.

'I didn't know about the tapping of the '57' until I started looking into this. It was all news to me.

'We have all types of sauces, jellies, and jams everywhere in our lab - It's like a closet full of condiments.'

So why did the team pick sauces for their award-winning product?

Dave said: 'It's funny: Everyone is always like, "Why bottles? What's the big deal?"

'But then you tell them the market for bottles - just the sauces alone is a $17billion market.

'And if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.'

The secret ingredient to the liquid coating is a heavily-guarded secret, but the team promise it is non-toxic and will be FDA approved.
 

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Station sex shop celebrates Sunday sales

 

A sex shop in Munich's main railway station has got special permission to sell condoms, porn DVDs and sexy skin lotion on Sundays after three local judges ruled they were legitimate travel supplies.

The owner of Erotic World had appealed against the city council's decision to stop him opening on Sundays – on the grounds that shops in the railway station were exempt from Bavaria's strict Sunday trading laws.

But this only applies if they sell products that can be considered souvenirs or travel supplies such as food, disposable cameras, newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, and CDs.

The shop argued in court that it also had such goods on its shelves, even if their content was rather more spicy than what the station's newsagents had to offer.

"This is the decision of the court … since the above articles can be considered 'travel supplies,' regardless of their content," a court statement issued Wednesday said.

But the judges added that the shop could not sell other erotic items in its range, such as sex toys. In fact, especially sex toys.

Three administrative judges visited Erotic World ahead of the court hearing to inspect the shop's goods, carefully assessing whether each item might come in handy on a long journey.

Condoms were considered useful enough, but the judges ruled that the old favorite sex game "Erotic Ludo" should still be taboo on the day God has designated the day of rest.

The city authorities also had a legal quibble relating to the shop's location, since it is actually on private property. But the court dismissed this on the grounds that the shop's back entrance was in the railway station.

 

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Birth control chemicals affecting the environment

 

When it comes to the fruits of human evolution, one thing is certain: nearly everything we do has repercussions within our environment. Some are just a little more surprising than the others. And so it is in a paper written by Richard Owen and Susan Jobling, who argue that birth control chemicals might adversely affect the environment.

Owen and Jobling conducted laboratory tests with ethinyl estradiol, a type of estrogen found in birth control pills. In humans, it obviously controls pregnancy, but in other organisms — specifically those found near waste water run-off — it might have the potential to create deformities. Presently there is no proof that this is occurring outside of testing labs.

Pro-life groups will likely seize on Owen and Joblings’s lab-work to argue that birth control is now violating another aspect of God’s creation. Owen and Jobling on the other hand are arguing for the European union to create an open decision-making process  regarding costs for cleaning chemicals from wastewater. That is, they would like to see those scientists not invited by EU to be able provide input on the legislative committee’s recommendation.

Owen and Jobling’s study appears in the latest issue of the weekly science journal Nature.

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3 Golden Sisters on 70 Year Old Virgin

The 3 Golden Sisters give there "two cents" on a 70 year old woman who 

is still a virgin

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Topless New York: Exhibit, Calendar, and Book

 

Why Topless New York?

In 1986, several women in Rochester, NY were arrested and convicted for picnicking topless in public.  They sued to challenge the law prohibiting women, but not men, from being topless in public - and in 1992, New York State's highest court struck down that law as violating the state constitution's equal protection clause.  See the court's full opinion at http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I92_0160.htm.

So for the past twenty years, it has been completely legal all over New York State for a woman to be topless in any public place where men can be topless.  Although few people are aware of this, I have been photographing women topless in public all over the state for the past few years in an effort to raise awareness, celebrate New York's recognition of top-free equality in a tasteful and hopefully artistic manner, and promote similar thinking for the vast majority of states where it is still illegal for a woman to be topless in public.

How You Can Help

The library of photographs is nearly complete, and it's about time to start spreading the word.  I'm planning an exhibit in New York City late this summer, to be followed by a 2013 wall calendar and a coffee-table-style book.  But all this will take a significant investment, which I cannot afford on my own right now - printing and framing the photos for exhibit, creating exhibit label cards, and spec printing costs for both the calendar and the book.  In addition, I hope to have a website from which to sell prints, calendars, and books, and although I have friends who can help at a discount, good web design (even discounted) is still not cheap.

But you can help!  Please invest in this project, and help spread the word that New York is nearly unique, and is a special place for women who wish to be treated truly equally, in every way, alongside men.

Where Are the Topless Photos?

Kickstarter is a family-friendly website, with no age restrictions for those choosing to view the projects available for investment.  While these photographs are in no way erotic, pornographic, or otherwise "adult," I recognize that many people would consider it inappropriate for me to post images of topless women in my project description, so I have chosen not to do so.  However, both of the links I've provided will lead you to places where you can see the majority of the photographs that I've prepared for the project thus far.  At http://www.modelmayhem.com/toplessnewyork you'll have to turn off the "work-safe" default setting, and at http://toplessnewyork.deviantart.com/ you'll have to join DeviantArt (membership is free) in order to see the photos.

Can I Get Involved?

I've already done just about as many shoots as I'm going to need for the exhibit, calendar, and book to be complete, so I am not offering any more paid modeling gigs.  But if you are interested in donating your time and services, and supporting a great cause, by modeling for the Topless New York project, please feel free to contact me at toplessnewyork@gmail.com.

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