OPCW backs UK on Salisbury nerve agent attack April 12, 2018 The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has backed the UK over Salisbury, confirming that the samples it has tested met “the identity of the toxic chemical” named as Novichok by the government. The nerve agent – which the OPCW did not name in its statement – hospitalised former double agent Sergei Skripal, [...]
It’s about time the regulators came for the tech behemoths April 11, 2018 How much changes in six months. Last year, the idea that the FANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) would look increasingly vulnerable to regulatory oversight and to the tweets of Donald Trump would be considered fantasy – or a nightmare. Now, regulation for three of the four is a definite possibility, and for Facebook and [...]
GDPR: Inspiring consumer data best practices April 9, 2018 The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a complex topic. So to explain it in a very human and (hopefully) humorous way, I first want to use an analogy about borrowing a car. If you want me to lend you my car, I’d first ask you to please explain why you need to borrow [...]
Facebook’s Icarus needs to come down to earth before it’s too late April 9, 2018 Mark Zuckerberg is facing his Icarus moment. The tale of the boy who flew too close to the sun would make uncomfortable reading for the Facebook founder. “Move fast and break things” was the mantra that made Zuckerberg such a totem of sky-high success. But lax privacy controls and the leaking of the information of [...]
Wah Nails founder Sharmadean Reid grabs $1m from Saul Klein’s Localglobe for new beauty networking app Beautystack April 9, 2018 The founder of London salon chain Wah Nails has proved she means business with her latest beauty venture, grabbing almost $1m of funding from Saul Klein’s Localglobe and angel investors. Wah’s Sharmadean Reid plans to use the funding to develop and launch the app of Beautystack, a new platform which acts as a beauty appointment [...]
How gyms are filling spaces left vacant by retailers and restaurants around London April 8, 2018 Exercise is basically the new clubbing. At least, that’s what Casey Phillips, a property agent at Shelley Sandzer, tells me as we’re discussing why the fitness industry is currently booming. “Instead of getting drunk, you do a class together,” he says. “You just feel incredible afterwards.” The wellness and fitness industry is estimated to reach [...]
Guest’s notes: Claire Fox on sugar taxes, gender ratios, comedy clubs and free speech April 8, 2018 Hope you had a happy sugar tax day. If you’re a joyless public health campaigner, you’ll be cheering. But if you’re a drinks company, there’s less reason to be cheerful: you’ll now be forced to pay between 18p and 24p for every litre of sugary drink containing more than 5g of sugar you produce or [...]
Facebook will now verify major page owners and advertisers in an effort to combat fake news April 7, 2018 Facebook is launching a new initiative to combat fake news by requiring verification for large pages and political advertisers. In a Facebook post last night, Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant will begin to require people who manage “large” pages to be verified. “This will make it much harder for people to run pages [...]
Millennials are killing the TV licence April 6, 2018 Millennials are constantly being accused of “killing” things. Not people, thankfully, but the auto industry, lunch, marriage. Here’s another for the ever-growing list: in between never owning a home, avocados on rye, and leeching off my parents, somehow I find time to not watch the BBC. An Ipsos MORI poll for the Beeb warns that [...]
Boux Avenue, Ryanair, J.P. Morgan and Macquarie are among the companies with the widest gender pay gaps April 5, 2018 The deadline for UK companies with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap data closed yesterday, with 10,035 companies having published their reports by the deadline. The government announced in January last year that from this April all employers with more than 250 staff would have to publish annual figures relating to [...]