WORLD

France is banning unsolicited telemarketing calls starting next week

France next week will ban unsolicited telemarketing calls under a new law aimed at protecting consumers from intrusive sales pitches and shielding vulnerable people from fraudulent commercial practices. The law backed by President Emmanuel Macron’s government enters into force on Tuesday. Previously in France, people who wanted to avoid marketing calls had to register their number with a government-run service, but consumer groups said some call centers ignored the list. Now, “businesses are prohibited from contacting consumers without their prior consent,” said Alice Vilcot, chief of staff at the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs, and Prevention of Fraud. “That consent can be withdrawn at any time.” The government says the law is a response to years of consumer complaints. Authorities estimate that about three-quarters of people in France receive at least one unsolicited sales call every week, and many receive more. In 2024, 11 consumer organizations issued a joint call for a ban, denouncing “relentless harassment of consumers through countless unwanted telemarketing calls to both landlines and mobile phones — an intrusion that has become a regular part of their daily lives.” Parliament approved the law last year. Individuals who make illegal calls can be fined up to $87,000 per call. Companies can face fines of up to $435,000 per call. There are exceptions. Consumers may consent to receive marketing calls, for example by checking a consent box on a form. Companies can contact customers with new commercial offers if they already have a contractual relationship. People can report unsolicited calls through a government website. Neighboring Germany has had a similar ban since 2009. Many other countries rely on opt-out systems. In the United States, people can sign up for the national Do Not Call registry, which cuts down on unwanted sales calls, Canada has its own Do Not Call list, while the UK has the Telephone Preference Service. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

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AUTOMAKER

Japan’s Honda reports robust results after its first ever annual loss

In an aerial view, the Honda of San Marcos dealership is seen in San Marcos, Texas, on March 12.Brandon Bell/Getty

Honda’s profit for the fiscal first quarter more than doubled from a year ago, as the Japanese automaker continues to tackle a turnaround from the first full year loss in its history. Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. said Wednesday its April-June profit totaled 456.9 billion yen ($2.9 billion), up from 196.6 billion yen for the same period a year ago. Quarterly sales rose 13.5 percent to 6.06 trillion yen ($38 billion), as vehicles sold well in the US and India, according to the maker of the Accord sedan, Fit subcompact, and Super Cub motorcycle. Honda previously recorded a 423.9 billion yen ($2.7 billion) loss for the fiscal year ended in March, acknowledging heavy costs for its electric-vehicle plans, which didn’t measure up to the original ambitions, partly because of President Trump’s policies. Analysts say many consumers weren’t ready to go electric. Honda has abandoned many of its plans for EV models. Trump’s tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, lowered to 15 percent from the initial 25 percent, also worked to dent Honda’s profitability. For the latest quarter, Honda’s motorcycle operations were highly lucrative with sales going strong in Brazil and India. Car sales grew in Japan and the US, while struggling in China. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

THEME PARKS

Disney’s strong parks results contrast with Comcast’s gloomy outlook

People visit the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on April 18, 2022.Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press

America’s theme park giants can’t seem to agree on the health of the tourism economy. Comcast, which owns the Universal parks, warned two weeks ago that higher fuel and airline prices and waning consumer confidence had prompted a pullback on spending in Orlando, Florida, the world’s theme park capital. “It’s an overall demand drop that’s hitting Orlando broadly,” Michael Cavanagh, Comcast’s co-CEO, told analysts on an earnings call while discussing a 5 percent quarterly decline in overall Universal parks profit. Disney offered a strikingly different assessment Wednesday. Walt Disney World in Orlando had a “standout quarter, with healthy core attendance increases from domestic tourists and annual pass holders,” Disney said as part of its earnings report. Attendance at Disney’s parks in Florida and California climbed 3 percent; Wall Street had expected growth of half a percent. “Obviously, we’re gaining share,” Hugh Johnston, Disney’s chief financial officer, said in an interview, suggesting that Disney had been taking visitors from Universal. He added that bookings at Disney World for the remainder of the year were “robust.” In the quarter that ended June 27, Disney’s domestic parks and cruise business generated $7.12 billion in revenue, an 11 percent increase compared with a year earlier. Profit soared 27 percent, to $2.1 billion. The results partially reflected the arrival of a new cruise liner, the Destiny. Souvenir and food sales at Disney parks increased 7 percent. Theme parks have long been seen as a bellwether for consumer confidence. But the conflicting Comcast and Disney results underscore how difficult it has become to read the state of the experiences economy. Americans continue to spend heavily on travel, but they are increasingly choosier about where to splurge, producing winners and losers even within the same market. — NEW YORK TIMES

JOBS

Etsy lays off 12 percent of workforce as part of restructuring plan

Crafting marketplace Etsy Inc. is laying off approximately 220 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce, as part of a restructuring plan it hopes will “improve coordination and speed of decision-making,” the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The layoffs will mostly impact workers in the product and engineering department, chief executive Kruti Patel Goyal said in an email to employees. “Cost savings are a consequence of these changes, but they are not the objective. We didn’t start this work with a cost reduction target or a goal of making Etsy smaller,” she said. “You’ll continue to see us invest in the business and the team and hire in areas that are important to our long-term strategy.” Patel Goyal said that the cuts also “weren’t driven by AI.” “At the same time, AI is changing how all of us work, and it will continue to change how we build products and solve problems,” Patel Goyal said. “As the tools available to us evolve, the skills we need, the ways we work together, and the capabilities we build across Etsy must evolve as well.” Laid-off workers will receive at least 16 weeks of severance pay, with additional pay based on tenure, continued health care support for up to 12 months, and other benefits. — REUTERS

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Google shakes up AI leadership

Demis Hassabis speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., on May 19.Jeff Chiu/AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Google shook up its artificial intelligence leadership Wednesday, moving Demis Hassabis, the Nobel Prize-winning head of its Google DeepMind lab, out of his operational role to become chair of the lab and chief scientist of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The new job for Hassabis was announced minutes after Jeff Dean, another key AI researcher, said he was leaving the company to create a startup with three other senior Google researchers. The changes atop Google’s AI leadership represent a dramatic management change as concerns grow over the tech industry’s spending on AI. They also raise questions about Google’s confidence in its work on the technology. Even though Google, under Dean’s research leadership, created some of the key technologies underpinning today’s AI, it was caught flat-footed when OpenAI unveiled the ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022, launching the AI boom. Since then, Google has reorganized the company and even remade the Google search homepage around AI. It merged its two AI labs, Silicon Valley-based Google Brain and DeepMind, in London, into one group under Hassabis’s leadership in 2023. And in recent years, Sergey Brin, Google’s cofounder, took an increasingly hands-on role in the company’s AI work. But by some measurements, it has continued to trail OpenAI and its rival Anthropic. Google was expected to release a new flagship AI model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, in June, but that launch was delayed. For some Silicon Valley veterans, the departure of Dean was a significant turning point for the company and a sign that Google may continue to leak talent. — NEW YORK TIMES