"We know that this is a challenge for businesses and could well be years, but there are things we expect people to do, such as carry out a full audit of what cookies they use. Do a bit of housekeeping," said Evans.

Deputy Commissioner Smith was also keen to highlight that although that the moratorium period has come to an end, this did not mean that the ICO was going to launch a "torrent of enforcement action".

"What it really means is those complaints about websites that don't get consent for cookies will now go into the normal processes we would take in assessing whether to use our enforcement powers," explained Smith.

He said that this depended on a number of factors. For example, the ICO will pay more attention to websites using 'intrusive cookies', such as those that are used for tracking to generate revenues for advertising based on a users' online behaviour. Whereas, cookies used for simple analytics are likely to get less attention.

The ICO is also unlikely to use its ability to fine companies up to £500,000 as it believes a breach of the cookie law is unlikely to meet the requirements it would need to issue such a fine.