Seattle Could Be Killing Yellow Pages with Google’s Help

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Seattle passed a yellow pages opt-out law late last year to cut back on the waste of paper created by the distributed books, many ending up in the trash. The city of Seattle is the first city in the country to enact such a law, but probably will not be the last. A law suit has been filed from Seattle’s largest phone book distributor to restrain the city’s actions.
 
Uh.... I don't get what they can sue on, if the resident opts out. I know they said they're being singled out, while spam mail get through or so it sounds like, but if it's possible to definitely tell what is spam and what is not, then that should happen as well.

Yellow books are pretty useless imo.
 
The yellow pages are becoming less useful as time goes on. I have not used one, except to sit under a monitor on a low desk, for quite some time.

Always use the internet, either on the laptop, the phone, or the desktop at home. It falls in the same category as a landline for me anymore.

Plus the shady as scams they use to get people to buy ads. They had some blokes from India call the place I used to work at multiple times in a day trying to get one employee or another to "confirm an address", and then use that as grounds to run multiple ads. Ads, they expected us to pay for.

A plan where you have to opt in to the do not deliver list, seems fair to me. I don't think it hampers freedom of speech like I figure some will argue.
 
I think it needs to be the other way around, for almost everything now these days. In other words you are opted out of everything till you opt-in. No, junk mail, coupons, worthless local paper, yellow pages, catalogs, et al.
 
This isn't even the most extreme proposal. San Francisco is trying to make yellow pages delivery opt in. The vote is currently scheduled for Tuesday, but has been delayed before.

Many of the yellow page distributers already participate in a voluntary opt out program; so aside from increased visibility I'm not sure what Seattle is expecting to accomplish, unless they're banking on someone screwing up as a revenue source.
 
I oped out of the five or so yellow, dex, etc. phone books that that used to darken my porch last year, only ho have them start delivering me ones in Spanish. Make sure if you are opting out to select EVERY one that could possibly be delivered to your door.

And yes, the law should be opt in not opt out...such a waste.
 
DanNeely said:
This isn't even the most extreme proposal. San Francisco is trying to make yellow pages delivery opt in. The vote is currently scheduled for Tuesday, but has been delayed before.
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Good to hear, I found a pile of phonebooks from 2004 in a corner of my garage, don't even bother to bring them up the stairs, plus there are TWO fucking sets of yellow pages now? THE Yellow Pages, and the Valley Yellow Pages... pfffbt

A law suit has been filed from Seattle’s largest phone book distributor to restrain the city’s actions.
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Funny, that giving people the right to say "I don't want to receive your shit" is something you can sue over.
 
Since I don't get the newspaper anymore I find the yellow pages to be great for cleaning my cast iron pans. Long live the yellow pages (and cast iron, cast iron cookware is awesome)!
 
sfsuphysics said:
Good to hear, I found a pile of phonebooks from 2004 in a corner of my garage, don't even bother to bring them up the stairs, plus there are TWO fucking sets of yellow pages now? THE Yellow Pages, and the Valley Yellow Pages... pfffbt
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You only have two? I've got 3, and I'm pretty sure my parents get 4 or 5 (They're just outside the county line in the Pittsburgh area, and get two counties worth of them as a result). Publishing them is a business, not a phone company monopoly.
 
My Yellow pages go straight from my front door to my garbage can. I should sue the phone company for making me strain my back picking that crap up... waste of paper.
 
Kueller said:
Since I don't get the newspaper anymore I find the yellow pages to be great for cleaning my cast iron pans. Long live the yellow pages (and cast iron, cast iron cookware is awesome)!
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I second this. I had to fix a garage window at my mom's house last year. Her cast Iron frying pan was dirty, so she tried using a new aluminum one. She got pissed that the food was sticking to it and not cooking well, so she hurled it out the window and into the garage door...

This wouldn't have happened if she had a phonebook to use to clean the cast iron frypan.
 
I recycle mine. They never even enter the house. Form the porch to the recycle bin. It's like DMA for paper.

But all us techno snobs need to grok that there is a large portion of the population that still use these things. So it's not going to go "poof" over night.
 
ianken said:
I recycle mine. They never even enter the house. Form the porch to the recycle bin. It's like DMA for paper.
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Thing is the yellow pages are such a thin (cheap) stock of paper I don't think they can be recycled... well unless you're a speculator in the cleaning cast iron pan market :D
 
pothb said:
Uh.... I don't get what they can sue on, if the resident opts out. I know they said they're being singled out, while spam mail get through or so it sounds like, but if it's possible to definitely tell what is spam and what is not, then that should happen as well.

Yellow books are pretty useless imo.
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I don't know the law well enough to say why they can sue, but I can't say that it's got to suck if you own a phone book distribution company of some sort for them to pass a law making your business illegal.
 
We get at least 3 different "versions" of the phone book here. We're so sick of the damn things we left the last one sitting right where it was tossed. It's been amusing watching it try to decompose in the rain. Maybe they'll get the idea when the next one arrives and the last one is still #@$%^# sitting there.
 
I foresee no problems here...since EVERYONE has internet (broadband at that) and a smartphone...and there are NEVER any outages... :rolleyes:
 
GORANKAR said:
The yellow pages are becoming less useful as time goes on. I have not used one, except to sit under a monitor on a low desk, for quite some time.
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Empty pizza boxes work well for this too as long as you get the right size pizza and it's not a CRT.
 
As far as I'm concerned tossing unwanted crap on my porch is vandalism or, at the least, littering and is illegal. Opting in is the only thing that would make sense.

Next to go should be mail boxes...
 
wtiger said:
It works well to start the charcoal grill.
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yep they are perfect for chimney starter. Much neater to keep a single big book around than trying to store random junk mail papers.
 
The only time I use the yellow pages is when my internet is out and I have to find the number to call Comcast.
 
What if the internets gets taken away :eek: If the caps fall to 12mbs. :eek:

How will people get stuff then!?
 
I actually was considering something else. I wanted to start filing charges against the company that distributes those books for littering on my property. Every time they throw their books on my lawn/doorstep/driveway I have to take the time to pick them up and throw them into the recycler. So to me it is littering. I don't think it's cool they can just drop a couple of pounds of useless paper on my property without my consent. So really if they keep it up, I will just be forced to use the existing laws to press littering charges against them.
 
The big problem here is not consumers it is businesses which still buy their worthless services. You have big businesses that are not going to risk missing a customer then you have small businesses that are not tech savy. You have to admit it is a really messed up situation it used to be years ago if you wanted to communicate with people you had just a couple of very effective ways to do that. The phone book, a major news paper, or radio. Now days you have a severely fragmented customer base. Some still rely on the phone book or news paper, others like many of us never touch either. I like others throw it out right away. Maybe next time I should put it in my car then throw it in the parking lot of their office.

I think the best arguement anyone could have is littering or solicitation. Put a sign on your door that says no solicitors then if they toss it on your door go after them for tresspassing or something. Either way to me sooner or later local businesses need to wake up and see that they are wasting money and stop buying the ads, and yellow book needs to look at the costs they are eating when they print thousands of books that never pass go, and go strait to the trash.
 
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