Starting today, unsolicited telemarking calls are banned in France unless consumers explicitly consent to them. Companies that violate the law can face fines of up to 375,000 euros per call, though existing customers can still be contacted with related offers. Le Monde reports: 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."
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 "That consent can be withdrawn at any time." [...] 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. Vilcot noted that an Ireland-based company was fined 6 million euros ($6.9 million) last year for violating France's previous telemarketing rules by calling people on the no-call list.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show. The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030. Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases. Initiatives including A&E blood tests, GP registration testing and free at-home tests have helped to find people who were previously undiagnosed, says NHS England.
NHS England says that since 2015, more than 100,000 people have been diagnosed and treated for hepatitis C, meaning the country is already meeting that target. Another goal -- a 65% reduction in hepatitis C-related mortality compared with 2015 levels -- has yet to be met, but might be before the 2030 target date. Around 50,200 adults are living with hepatitis C, figures for England in 2024 suggest. Estimates indicate 84.6% of those living with hepatitis C have been diagnosed -- just short of the 90% target. The Hepatitis C Trust says England is "on the cusp" of one of the most significant public health achievements in our country's history.
Reggie Bannister has died. Bannister was best known as “Reggie,” the heroic ice cream man, from the Phantasm series, an iconic horror hero who survived the Tall Man across five movies. Dubbed the “hardest working man in horror” by his Phantasm maestro Don Coscarelli, Bannister died on August 9 at his California cabin, his wife, Gigi, confirmed to TMZ. No cause of death was immediately reported, but Bannister suffered from Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease and entered hospice care last February. He was 80.
“In the Phantasm series, only Reggie could turn a simple role as an ice cream vendor sidekick into an unlikely action hero for the ages,” Coscarelli wrote on Facebook. “He channeled himself into that role. All the fans who met him at the horror conventions could attest that in person, Reg was cool, funny, loyal, and steadfast. Reggie the character was Reggie the friend. In real life, he embodied all the qualities of his character in Phantasm, and no one questioned that Reg was that guy, the one willing to lay his body down on the fires of hell for his friends.”
Born September 29, 1945, in Long Beach, California, Bannister attended Long Beach City College and found early success as a folk musician. Performing with the Greenwood County Singers, he scored a hit with “The New Frankie And Johnny Song,” co-written by Shel Silverstein, and performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon after, he was drafted into the military and shipped to Vietnam. As a head radio operator for an automatic weapons specialty group, he lost some of his hearing and was exposed to Agent Orange. “The main thing I didn’t like being a part of was being the killing machine, but then as citizens, when this country goes to war we’re all part of the killing machine, aren’t we?” Bannister said in 2017. “We don’t really have a say in what’s going on.”
After returning from war, Bannister used the G.I. Bill to study acting, eventually meeting Coscarelli in a Long Beach dive bar to discuss the director’s first movie, 1975’s Jim, The World’s Greatest. It began a lifelong collaboration between Coscarelli and Bannister that continued into the Phantasm franchise in 1979. The film, with its inventive effects and off-beat sense of humor, was an immediate cult hit, thanks in large part to Bannister’s performance. Coscarelli wrote the role of Reggie for Bannister, based it on his personality, and gifted the series an honorable and loyal everyman who challenged typical notions of the action hero. The guitar-playing and endlessly affable Bannister took the orb and ran with it, becoming an essential part of the series and starring in all five installments. The Phantasm movies made Bannister a regular in independent horror movies. Throughout his career, Bannister also starred in Wishmaster, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and Bubba Ho-Tep.
Bannister is survived by his wife, Gigi, and daughter Ellen.
The Washington Post shared surprising news this week about five top AI companies.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle "are spending so much on developing AI and delivering it to customers that they're expected to bleed cash in the coming year, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence."
Free cash flow, which measures the cash left over after paying expenses and AI infrastructure costs, is now expected to shrink to almost nothing for the five companies combined in 2026, and decline again to negative $125 billion the following year... AI spending by Amazon and Google pushed the companies to an ignominious milestone: They lost more cash in the past three months than any other large U.S. companies, according to S&P Global data. Investment analysts expect Elon Musk's SpaceX to show even worse cash bleeding this week.
Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media.
The document provides more details on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam company. 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching this partnership, and its use of Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers right around the time 404 Media reported on it.
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Do you work for Flock, Axon, or a similar company? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.
Flock told 404 Media in an email it never executed the partnership with Nexar. But the presentation still shows Flock’s ambitious plan to conscript rideshare and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its network. It is not clear whether Uber or Lyft, or drivers working for those apps, would have been aware of the data collection.
“Hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA [home owners associations] in GA [Georgia] are part of the network,” the presentation, written by Flock to present to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August, reads. “Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”
Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia, resident who obtained the presentation through a public records request, shared the document with 404 Media.
Image: screenshot of the presentation.
Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are usually stationary cameras installed on tall poles that constantly scan the license plate, color, make, and brand of every vehicle that drives past. The Nexar partnership would have made those data collection efforts mobile. Axon, the law enforcement contracting giant that also sells ALPR cameras, sells some of its cameras to be installed in police officers’ roaming cars. Vigilant Solutions and the Digital Recognition Network (DRN), two ALPR companies now owned by Motorola, perform similar license plate data collection through cameras in vehicles belonging to repossession agencies.
Nexar sells various different models of dashcams providing front, cabin, and rear views, and already can provide “clear license plate capture with Full HD video,” according to its website. Nexar markets the cameras to rideshare drivers and also “commuters,” “long-distance drivers,” and “casual drivers.”
In September, 404 Media reported that a hacker broke into Nexar and accessed a database of terabytes of video recordings taken by customers’ cameras. Those included footage of people driving around sensitive Department of Defense locations.
Flock has explored obtaining other unusual datasets too. Last May, 404 Media reported Flock was building a massive people lookup tool that would use hacked data to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked audio. Flock scrapped those plans after 404 Media’s coverage and internal pressure.
Neither Uber nor Lyft responded to a request for comment. Neither did Nexar.
In May, 404 Media reported a company called BusPatrol, that has cameras installed in tens of thousands of school buses, plans to turn those cameras into ALPRs and give access to that data to law enforcement.
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