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Don't Want a Phonebook? Give Up Your Privacy
newscloud writes "Seattle will soon shut down its popular phonebook opt-out website as a result of a costly settlement with Yellow Pages publishers. Going forward, the only way to stop unwanted phonebook deliveries will be to visit the industry's opt out site and provide them with your personal information. They will share it with their clients, most of whom are direct marketing agencies, who in turn commit not to use it improperly. The Federal Court of Appeals ruled in October that The Yellow Pages represent protected free speech of corporations (including Canada's Yellow Media Inc.); defending and settling the lawsuit cost Seattle taxpayers $781,503. The city said the program's popularity led to a reduction of 2 million pounds of paper waste annually."
They stop pretty quickly after you do it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
... collect all the unwanted phone books, and dump them all on the front porch of Yellow Pages publishers executives.
I generally support free speech, but only if it includes the right to plug your ears and precludes the right to force people to listen.
Corporations are not people, and do not get natural rights such as the right to free speech.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I find your lack of privacy disturbing.
Lets get the ball rolling:
1) foot rest ....
2) paper recycling
3) Camp fire starter
So just visit their website and lie about everything. Make the information offensive, even, or obviously false (all except the address, I guess, which they have to have). 99% of the mail I get is junk mail anyway, so much so that I rarely look at it and just use automatically it for fire starter, animal bedding, etc.
Never give up privacy, even under duress. When this kind of thing happens, meet them on a level playing field and corrupt their database with junk info.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
and it cost the yellow pages all future business in Seattle.
I think I'm going to go over to my asshole next door neighbor's house and dump a bunch of crap on his lawn. It's my free speech right!
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
I just use them to weight down my recycle bin so it doesn't blow away. I will not give out my address to them.
Collect all the unwanted phonebooks and deliver them to the phone company regional office, preferably piled up in front of the door.
Between my cellphone + computer, if I want to find someone or a business I just run a search.
But, recently there have been issues where we lost power + internet/data, yet will had access to a phone. In which case, I guess it's useful then. Or as fireplace fuel if there is a true emergency.
Sure, there are people that NEED them. The elderly person who never learned to use a computer, the poor that don't have internet, the random dude that just doesn't like the internet in general, et.
But forcing everyone to get it is kind of lame. Then again, it's no big deal to trash it or recycle it.
As the Federal Court of Appeals says... leaving phone books is protected free speech. Well, exercise the right! Take every phone book you can find, and leave it at the (Federal Court of Appeals) court house - and let THEM deal with the problem.
If nobody reads the damn thing, how can it be profitable? And if it isn't profitable, why are they distributing it?
Unless people actually *are* reading it. If so, then how is this a waste?
And we're not going to run out of trees any faster than we'll run out of potatoes. Trees used for paper are grown in farms, and are selectively bred for that purpose (the resulting product is of higher quality and cheaper than from wild trees.) Paper production isn't the reason for decreasing numbers of trees, and recycling paper is a huge waste of time and resources.
The only reason there are fewer trees in the world (and not in the US btw, the number of trees we have in the US has been steadily growing for decades now) is because jungle territory is being cut down to make way for real-estate.
That said, I'm not sure why the politicians would make an issue of trying to reduce the number of phone books. Just treat it like any other junk mail: send it right to the trash. And you only have to do it once a year.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
We attempted to opt-out of Yellow Pages deliveries in our local area in California, but it doesn't work. The guys who throw these things on everyone's front porch do not care whether you are on the list or not. I'm not even sure that they have a list. You will still get phone books.
There have always been limitations on "free speech" when it comes to pollution. Even an individual isn't allowed to rant about the lizard men with a megaphone at 3 AM.
The phone books are put on private property without permission. Is there some law that gives them permission? They're welcome, I suppose, to stand on the sidewalk and read the phone book at me, if they want, or even to stand there with the book open. I suppose they could pay the Post Office to mail it to me, since they have a special legal exemption.
If they've got some kind of blanket exemption, then of course an opt-out is going to violate privacy. And if this is the case, it sounds like they need to eliminate the blanket exemption, and I don't see "free speech" being a defense against that, since your right to speech ends where my property begins.
So, what happens if as a private citizen I post a notice on my property saying that any unsolicited material deposited on my property will incur a disposal fee of $100 per item, and then bill the YP company for my disposing of the trash they left without permission?
Reminder: freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to use someone else's property without permission. You want to speak, use public property or hire your own hall.
How long can they sell advertisement in books nobody looks at?
Just ignore them. They save me from grabbing the free local rag to start my BBQ. Weather I burn Yellow pages or Yellow journalism it's the same amount of paper. This way the 'News and Review' doesn't get a wrong impression and think anybody is actually reading them.
Right now, business's are buying yellow pages adds because they always have. Give it a little while.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And should be illegal. The judges that found for the yellow page companies are on the take or just clueless, either way they should be impeached, tarred and feathered, and run out of town on a rail.
Demand more phone books. Make them pay for extra printing.
If they won't stop delivery then go after them for littering. It's not free speech. To me, the phone books, weekly papers, and flyers that everyone thinks that I simply must have are no more than unwanted litter that is tossed anywhere on a property by brain-dead delivery people that I have to go collect up each week and trash.
Who is paying for the Yellow Pages? Is it tax payer funds or by Yellow Pages? If Yellow Pages is footing the bill, don't worry about opting out and either recycle them or ship them to:
2247 Northlake Parkway
Tucker, GA 30084
Apparently the address is what is used to register their domain. I'm pretty sure they'll get peeved rather quickly when deliveries start piling in.
So who do I pay to get a white pages residential listing, now that I have a mobile phone? Indeed, why does the white pages not list mobile phones? Having an unlisted number is rude to all your friends who might wish to actually find you.
It's bad enough that you have to pay a fee to these people to keep them from printing your details in a book that they deliver to every household in your vicinity, but now you cannot even tell them to skip delivery to your house without giving up valuable personal information to them that they will undoubtedly capitalize on. They're making money on you hand-over-fist, and you have no choice in the matter -- it's a great gig for "private industry," more so since the practice is now ruled constitutionally protected.
If you need any more proof that we're circling the drain, then you simply haven't been paying attention.
I went to their website and registered. They ask for your address, name and phone number, which is all information they already have if they are making the phonebook. The only thing they ask for that they don't have is an email address. You should have one that you send junk email to anyway if you do any online buying, so I don't see what the big deal is. Nice to be able to get rid of the damn phonebooks!
How does opting out of a phone book violate the free speech of a company's ad. Your not stopping them from printing it, your not blocking them from speaking about it and your not taking action which damages the services they provide in any way. I'm really confused how this is a free speech issue. Personally I haven't used a phone book in years, I just Google everything, so I can understand why people would opt of the phone book.
Legal and ethical opinion:
The first ten amendments are not rights granted by the government they are rights we spell out as humans that we have regardless of government. These rights do not and should not transfer to a corporation. Rights granted by other amendments may be arguable but dilution of the first ten that constitutes the Bill of Rights should be opposed with great fervor! If corporations are to be granted such rights then those rights need to be either new amendments or new corporate governance laws written the same way.
Personal opinion:
This country has enough private secular interest tipping the scales away from the individual constituency in the form of political lobbies with billions to spare. We do not need the government further pandering to these money seekers at the detriment of the people. Congress wallows in its own inability to represent its people and every year it gets more and more obvious that they are not answering to their constituents but the corporations in their districts. We don't need nor want the Supreme Court sticking its nose into that same cesspool.
I wonder if we'll be able to make Fire Logs out of all the freaking Yellow Pages books we'll be inundated with.
Are cell phones listed? I haven't used a phone book in years and I only use Skype. I don't have a home phone nor a cell phone anymore its my way of voting with my dollars :)
Jack of all trades,master of none
It amazes me that companies are willing to pay money for a list of names that are clearly hostile towards unwanted mail. Unless it's for a "do not mail" list, but I don't get the impression it is.
Even an individual isn't allowed to rant about the lizard men with a megaphone at 3 AM.
As a former resident of the Lakeview Apartment complex and participant in frequent phone calls to local officials in regards to afore mention megaphone, I can assure you that a sufficiently coherent individual with paranoid schizophrenia can, in fact, rant about whatever she chooses at 3am with, in this case, a P.A. system in her livingroom without being arrested.
I hadn't bothered with this before; I just threw the things into the recycle bin as I got them - but now I'm annoyed enough to use their "official" opt-out form.
I'm not sure why people are complaining about having to provide their address to do this, though... how else do you expect this to work?
#DeleteChrome
This is an interesting case, of a company going directly against the stated (and popular) view of the voters.
Personally I think the law should have stuck, but since it didn't, let's look at what we can do with what we have:
1. Work to change legal recognition of corporate personhood.
2. Establish laws that limit the ability of similar lawsuits to be brought.
3. Use our own free speech to criticize the companies who pull stunts like this. This lawsuit is a stain on their brand.
It is not the address people object to giving out, it is the other fields they demand to have. Name, phone number, email and the rest.
They only need address, nothing else.
Send them back to the company that sent them to you.
It is one thing to get one another to get thousands.
Outlaw them totally
The city should offer a program by which they pick up unwanted yellow pages and deliver them to the office(s) and work locations of the YP, as an ongoing political protest.
'no soliciting or leaving phonebooks'. If they leave a phonebook, then sue the company.
Issue solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...you must help me defeat the Lizard Men once and for all.
And I was out there no later than 2:45.
Good point.
BTW for people who might think they can use a fake address - your email address has to be functional, at least at the time you register - you can't complete registration (which means you can't opt out of anything) until you click on the follow-up email.
#DeleteChrome
They will share it with their clients, most of whom are direct marketing agencies, who in turn commit not to use it improperly.
Well, as long as they pinky-swear.
Use mailinator.com
That should save you some hassle.
My dad still has wood powered heating and phone book pages are really great for starting it.
Opt out of junk mail? Are you nuts, that's what I use for fueling my stove.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Some dumb hippies still stuck in the 70's think we're deforesting for all this paper. Tree farms have been used for a long time. And the paper process makes the carbon less likely to decay into CO2 earlier, so it's a carbon sink (after a sort; not quite as good as treated lumber). Take your free yellow pages and do something with it.
Just wait for the next piece of junk mail to come with a pre-paid return postage card. Stick the card to the phonebook and drop it in the mail. This results in:
1) The idiots forcing you to receive worthless phone book have wasted money.
2) The idiots sending you other worthless junk have wasted money.
3) The Post Office gets money.
I wouldnt give my personal information just to stop getting what is essentially junk mail.
If the yellow pages want to create more waste in the dumps, waste their own time, money, manpower and resouces on giving me that junk book I didnt ask for then its not my fault when I just toss it in the garbage without even so much as looking at it. Or like in my grandmas case she throws it down the basement steps and then tears out pages to use to lite the wood furnance in the winter time.
I cant imagine all the wasted paper, the wasted gasoline use to haul those millions of tons of books around and gas used to deliver them to homes, all the space taken up each year in landfills and all the time wasted in those things each year. The yellow pages and phone books are wasteful now and nothing else in an age where you can get on the internet while sitting on the toilet, in the middle of the woods, flying in a plane or driving down the road.
If you want to opt-out of direct mailing, not only do you have to give them your personal information, they charge $1 for it! The actual site: https://www.dmachoice.org/
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
How does an opt-out even work for apartment buildings? At my apartment, they just drop off a big stack of phone books at the front entrance. There are no names or addresses on them or any other way to tell which one is for which person. Usually they just sit there for a couple weeks (with maybe one or two taken by residents) until the building manager gets tired of seeing them and he tosses them in the recycle bin. Since they seem to drop off more phone books than there are apartments in the building, I can't believe they take one out of the stack to account for an opt-out.
Wait a second. It's the phonebook. Who's giving up anything? I assume that they've already got your name and address and phone (assuming you have a land line). They are, after all, a list of names with phones and addresses. You'd be giving up your email, according to the online form, but throwaway accounts would deal with that.
OTOH . . . I suppose if you only have a wireless phone, and never had landline service -- at least at your current address -- you might not be listed in their database. So mobile users could be subjecting themselves to more junk mail, spam and do-not-call violations.
Then there's the truly unfortunate soul, the person with no phone number at all. From the opt-out site:
A valid telephone number is required in order to process and verify opt-out requests. Incorrect or omitted information may prevent us from honoring your request.
Which is truly bizarre when you think about it, since that's the guy who'd have the least use of a telephone directory of anyone!
I am not a crackpot.
You could always find a good use for the ream of free paper. It might be a little scratchy, but it should make very effective toilet paper. Or birdcage liner. Or packing material. Or paper mache.
I wonder how long they would continue to deliver them if a large percentage of the victims threw the books through the office windows of the company that delivered them.
Seattle never should have sued. Just charge anybody involved in the distribution high taxes/fees for the extra recycling it causes. If the company keeps tossing phone books out to people who don't want them, the fee obviously isn't high enough. The city could even maintain an opt-out website that companies could access to save themselves unnecessary recycling fees.
There have always been limitations on "free speech" when it comes to pollution.
A lot fewer than you seem to think. Honestly, I can't think of a one that holds universally. Some municipalities have ordinances about fliers, but most don't.
The phone books are put on private property without permission. Is there some law that gives them permission? They're welcome, I suppose, to stand on the sidewalk and read the phone book at me, if they want, or even to stand there with the book open. I suppose they could pay the Post Office to mail it to me, since they have a special legal exemption.
They are, effectively, mailing them to you. If you're not surprised that FedEx or UPS can leave parcels on your door step, or that Jehova's Witnesses and neighbors can come knocking on your door, then don't be surprised when the Yellow Pages delivery sub-contractor shows up on your doorstep with his parcel. The city can no more single out thedelivery of yellow pages from other parcels than the post office can single out junk mail from other mail. It's frankly not their place to judge what is worthy to be received based solely on the sender. There is only one real legal mechanisms for preventing someone from talking to you (which is effectively what a city-enforced opt-out is) is a restraining order. I don't think this would pass muster.
I don't see "free speech" being a defense against that, since your right to speech ends where my property begins.
This is the sort of pithy little turn of phrase that people always use. "your right to ___ ends where my right to ____ begins." It is almost never true. It's especially untrue when your right is just property rights, probably the weakest form of "right" on the book.
If you don't have "no trespassing" signs regularly posted, you have almost no right to keep someone off your land. The only thing you have going for you is "breaking and entering", which -- surprise! -- actually requires them to break something and enter. All sorts of jurisdictions and entities have easement rights. If you live in a town you probably 1) were too stupid to ask about which rights of property automatically convey, because some like mineral rights don't, and 2) wouldn't gotten them anyway because you bought it from a person who didn't have the rights in the first place. As far as private observers go, you have no right to privacy for anything you don't keep private with doors, walls, and curtains. Public officials can't search the land immediately around your house (curtilage) without a warrant, but open fields that are part of the same property are fair game. If you fail to secure some dangerous tool or feature on your real property, you could be breaking major laws because you have an attractive nuisance.
And these are the laws that hold pretty much everywhere, ignoring more nuanced laws like zoning, planning, and ordinances. In other words, just because you scratched a line in the dirt and put it on file ate the county clerk's office doesn't mean you have some sort of isolated kingdom. You're part of a community, like it or not. So is the yellow page company. Consider it your cross to bear. You do not have as many special rights as you think you do.
And on a related note, I'm a bit tired of seeing torrents of "corporations shouldn't have rights" comments on every single article. Corporations are masses of people. People have rights. Even if you feel like arguing that people should somehow lose basic rights when they agree to form a corporation -- which, incidentally, is crazy -- then all you're really doing is encouraging corporations to farm out all their work to single-person token "contractors". One human paid expressly for the purpose of bypassing laws. It already happens all the time in zoning and real estate, and it only increases the overall level of corruption. People have a right to live, to property, to speech, and numerous other rights without which the other rights w
It is not the address people object to giving out, it is the other fields they demand to have. Name, phone number, email and the rest.
They only need address, nothing else.
If you've got a landline, you're not giving the phonebook anything they don't already have -- if you know about throwaway email addresses.
Maybe the whole idea is to cheaply build a database of cellphone users without having to pay the mobile operators for their customer lists . . .
I am not a crackpot.
Use mailinator.com That should save you some hassle.
Now we only need "phoninator". That might be a heck of a business opportunity for someone who could figure out how to make money at it. Or at least convince someone to buy them up before the bills come due.
I am not a crackpot.
I don't nor does anyone I know under the age of 50 have a landline.
That seems like an idea.
Just have it play advertising when they call.
"Thanks for calling now a word from our sponsors...."
It currently sits on my front porch, having been delivered at some point early last year. I'm curious to see if the next one will simply be piled atop its remains!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Corporations are not people, and do not get natural rights such as the right to free speech.
Corporations are organized by people who do have the constitutional right to speak collectively, to do business collectively, and so on.
Forums like Slashdot can exist only where those who fund them are not personally responsible for all the debts of the organizations which manage them.
This is basic.
This is part of what gives meaning to freedom of speech, freedom of association.
The EFF is a corporation.
Not-For-Profit, but still a corporation.
The Declaration of Independence is framed in terms of natural law. The US Constitution is not --- and there is a reason for that. The Constitution is a legal document and not a philosophical argument.
It is all about setting the rules and boundaries for collective action.
"We the people" get to make the big decisions --- and take the country in any direction we choose to go.
But, recently there have been issues where we lost power + internet/data, yet will had access to a phone. In which case, I guess it's useful then.
If you've still got cell service -- even if (especially if) you don't have data service -- text your query to 466453 ('GOOGLE') and get an answer by SMS.
I am not a crackpot.
People are probably dropping actual trash and dog shit on your property and you need the government to protect you from a once-per-year phone book delivery? Religious crazies, corrupt politicians, and brainwashed cookie girls actually pound on your door demanding attention and money. A kid was even seen on your lawn! I'd say the phone books fall well within the normal order.
Hence the problem. After Sandy, we had no cell service or internet, but the analog phonelines in the area still worked.
So while yeh, that meant we still had access to 411 and such... at that point having some yellow pages could work out well.
Just say the phone book companies and other companies who work for them don't have permission to come onto your property. That way, they'd have to be trespassing to drop one off, which can be a potential criminal act.
You'd have to contact a lawyer for the proper wording, and to properly notify all the companies involved. But it sounds like you could easily find a bunch of people to pool their money to do that.
Could they just leave a piece of paper with a link to their website like any modern business?
Hello Cruel World
Go to the website and fill out and fill out as much garbage info as you can, aside from your address. Just a thought.
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
Have people post pictures of their yellow pages in the recycling the day after they received it.
Advertisers will realize they are getting nothing from this and will drop out.
Destroy the business model and the problem will take care of itself.
I don't nor does anyone I know under the age of 50 have a landline.
I've been seeing more people getting land-lines again after having kids. They cite such reasons as: having a phone a smaller child could call 911 with, being able to reach a babysitter (including grandparents) that didn't have his or her own mobile, power outages and so on. One friend even ported his cell number (which he'd ported long ago from a land line) back to a home number. I haven't done it myself, but every so often my wife brings up the subject of "shouldn't we have a home phone?" so I suppose it's imminent.
I am not a crackpot.
So get a voip phone or one of those devices that your cell phone can dock into.
meh. The numbers I frequently call would be on my cell phone phonebook. The phonebook I got years ago is likely still 90% accurate for businesses. With that many services lost (power+data), I'm inclined to drive to a hotel where maybe there will a phonebook near the Bible (or Phonebook near the bible).
In the worst case - not wanting to do 411 - maybe I call someone and ask. Hopefully I'm not asking for the number to the nearest abortion clinic.
If I had the resources, my solution would be: take up a collection, where everyone can bring their yellow pages and throw them in the back of a dump truck... then drive it down to the publisher's office and unload them all in front of their building... not littering because each person who tossed their book into the dump truck did so with the express understanding that it would be delivered to a specific address.
Solution #2: Call every business in the yellow pages and tell them you refuse to patronize them expressly because they advertise in the yellow pages.
The second is probably more realistic, but the first is definitely more fun!
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Dang you whippersnappers with your fancy "internets" and "tubes".
You just don't get the intimacy of that fancy yellow paper.
Comes in handy as bum wipe if you run out of corn cobs.
If I want a phone book, all I have to do is pick one off the stack sitting in the lobby every time a new book comes out.
It depends where you live. In my community there is a noise restriction after 10 pm. If someone gets too noisy, we can call in the police to get them to quiet down.
The phonebook is treated with so many nasty chemicals you would never want to use it as fireplace fuel unless you were incredibly desperate or hated your family. It is made to survive being outside for over a year.
Recycle it, please.
Opt out and provide the personal information for the Managing Board of Yellow pages. Duh, live by the sword...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping is a way to make money doing that. Though I think the rules were changed recently to try and stop that - ah there it is: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/07/21/1646249/fcc-tariff-changes-mean-no-more-free-conference-calls
Under Washington State law, we have Stand and Defend rights, so we can shoot anyone who tries to litter on our property.
Like the people with Yellow Pages.
Collect unwanted yellow pages and burn them to make electricity, steam and purify waste water. Since they're a renewable resource that's almost carbon neutral, and you're preventing the unwanted use of landfills, you have a winner on multiple counts.
Do what I did: Get rid of your phone.
The Network is ubiquitous. You only think you need a phone -- you've been marketed. What you actually need is wifi, and it's pretty much everywhere, with very few exceptions. I live in a rural area and there are wifi connections everywhere, a good many of them open, and others available for the asking.
That still leaves you with text messaging, IM, email, VOIP, etc. With a modern tablet or phone, you can even do video.
That's all quite aside from the financial and sanity benefits.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
VOIP is not a direct, complete replacement for POTS. In POTS I have a direct hard line to the CO with generators ( i know, i asked when i did some contract work ), VOIP i get a battery in a closet at best.
Good-bye
Yes, it is.
That is an extreme edge case. Besides you would still have your cell phone.
The odds of you being out of the house, the children being with a baby sitter with no cell phone and the power going out have to be pretty minuscule.
Anything that takes out power might well take out the line back to the CO as well. Around here ice takes down trees which take down lines and poles, POTS does not survive that failure condition at all. Seems cutting the line with a tree branch is like that.
Collect all the phone books. Instead of dropping them off at the phone company drop them off at the local pizza place. You need to to target the source of income for these books.
then all you're really doing is encouraging corporations to farm out all their work to single-person token "contractors"
Sounds like a way to help unemployment.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I don't know about any other Seattle peeps, but I'm going to give it back to city hall. Yep, going to dump them at city hall, I suggest all peeps do it.
Maybe they'll figure out something different next time.
Be seeing you...
...but then what am I to use for a stand for my monitor???
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Think about what the issue here is:
An organization that has your address and name wants your address and name so they can stop delivering it to you.
OMG!!! ALERT THE PRIVACY POLICE!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't do that. Clearly the city wants to help, but they can't.
Deliver it to your governor, senators and congress people. You know, people who can actual make changes. Sending it to city hall is a monumental waste, and a slap in the face to the people trying to help you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I help small businesses entrepreneurs and can offer a different perspective. I've never had to train a janitor, barber, dispatcher, tow-truck operator or politician how to use a phone book. (or how to use one safely, or how to properly-configure or update their telephone to connect to a particular phone number)
The economics of yellow pages still work. About a quarter of the volume for a couple IT support business I'm familiar with...comes from phone book ads. Which, per customer, provide an incredibly cheap "fire and forget" low-maintenance form of advertising for blue and pink-collar businesses that don't involve owners sitting at computers. I'm a geek and have a browser running on me (or near me) close to 100% of the time, but noticed that some small businesses just don't exist online...and probably for good reason.
There are inherently local industries of which most high paid digital technorati seem blissfully unaware. For example, try looking for a cheap tow-truck (emphasis on cheap) when you're in the grocery parking lot and your car won't start.
I did, less than a year ago, and noted only the highest priced scum of the earth operators with local govt contracts, gaudy chromed trucks, complicated fees STARTING at $85 minimum hook-up fee had web sites. The patient and polite owner/operators that answered their own phone and charged $40-$50, fixed price per tow, were accessible to me only via the phone-book.
Janitorial services can have an effective print ad with just a few minutes of specification and a phone call. The immigrant with a mop and bucket that can't achieve the same cost-time efficiency with a local web designer or Go-Daddy rep that they can achieve with the Yellow Pages sales girl. Advertising "to the whole world" when you want local customers for a local activity creates its own problems, such as making you an easy target for international spammers/scammers/web-site defacers. It probably means that to monitor the presentation of your web-ad, you'd have to go get a computer in addition to purchasing the mop & bucket. You'd have to learn how to use that computer, then pay guys like me to de-louse it, join the forced-march of software licensing, pay local lawyers to defend against scanning patent infringement law-suits because they "probably infringe" if they have a small business with a computer. etc, responding to bank notices they need to type in their old PIN at the following link, etc., when she just wants to start a business mopping floors to feed her kids because she doesn't want her kids to grow up seeing welfare as a solution.
I travel a lot for business. My favorite barber shops (that's right, *real* barber shops...not styling salons) could only be found in the hotel room's phone book, not the guest services directory or the web. The barber shops I like are staffed with neatly dressed old gentlemen that will keep you keep you up to date on sports, local politicians, zoning laws and economic scuttlebutt while giving you a perfect trim & shave. They don't do web-sites and don't do appointments. On the other hand, you may be waiting next to the zoning commissioner, because he's made to wait for his turn too.
Barber shops and tow-trucks remind me that for some activities, phone books are the "on ramp" to getting "plugged in" to "effective knowledge networks" of people and personalities for getting things done.
That said, I see sites like Yelp! and Google Places increasingly performing the same function at zero cost and with "little or no effort" on the business owner's part.
make them pay extra to receive them...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
... after that sickeningly cliched and stupid, meaningless phrase...
"Going forward"
"Moving forwards".
Idiots.
Make giant paper mache/spit wads and launch them at the corporate building with a trebuchet. Figure out where the executive suite is and call that the bullseye.
Why bother making paper mache? That's a lot of work. What's wrong with just launching the phone books? Or a bale of them?
B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
an individual isn't allowed to rant about the lizard men with a megaphone at 3 AM.
What if there actually are lizard men at 3am posing a clear and present danger?
You have to think of these things or else you end up with someone not warning you about lizard men when they could have.
4am may be too late.
I have no problem receiving these phone books and I also am not bothered by junk mail. I think of all the jobs that they generate, from data collectors to layout artists to printers to delivery people. Particularly with the trouble the USPO is in, the junk mail is helpful; the postage prepaid envelopes in credit card ads even serve the USPO better. I find no real strain in putting such items in the recycle bin thus supporting even more jobs.
Do what I do. I pickup the phone book. Walk to the side of my garage and throw them in the trash can. I don't need or use them. I can't remember the last time I even opened a phone book. If they want to waste money printing and sending it to me more power to them. I'll keep doing the same thing.
It would be interesting if somebody did an empirical experiment on this.
There have been such studies in the US already; Google "ballot name order effect". It even looks like some of them have controlled for whether party affiliation was displayed.
I also wanted to mention the related Australian concept of the donkey vote, though that's an unintended consequence of compulsory voting.
...and now I'm opted out. What's the big issue here?
.... used to mean unlisted in the phone book. Doesn't that still hold true?
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Even better, the city could require the phone book company to collect the unwanted books at their cost.
Their delivery folks often gain unauthorized access to apartment buildings by waiting for someone to come out or convince random people to open the gate, in order to leave their trash at your doorstep.