Mandatory Phone Book Laws

[walkitout]

With the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning Seattle's and San Francisco's efforts to punish persistent delivery of unwanted Yellow Pages, people are talking about laws that mandate delivery of the phone book to all addresses. But do these laws refer to the yellow pages, the white pages, or both?

http://daily.sightline.org/2011/06/27/white-pages/

This article says that at least some (maybe all?) of those laws are specific to the White Pages, and there has not been a push by recipients to get rid of the White Pages -- or even the legislators and regulators and elected officials who made such a big deal over the Yellow Pages. And that must be in part because the phone book publishers would really rather not deliver _any_ of these things and if you give them the opportunity to just quit, they will. And we probably shouldn't go randomly sticking it to all those 60ish, 70ish and other people out there who are persistently without electronic access to the same information.

The author of the pieces provides a detailed explanation of how to address this particular issue in a fair way (ensuring that the people who still want and need the white pages won't be stranded), and the limited comments are all worth reading.

More on the subject, and on which states are modifying (or have modified) their laws to allow opting out of white pages:

http://daily.sightline.org/2012/02/13/white-pages-theater-of-the-absurd/

The links embedded in it are _stunning_. Very, very few people want the white pages anymore.

Comments

Seattle settles with publisher's org

[rolandgo.livejournal.com]

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020398730_yellowpagesxml.html

Maybe they paid their legal costs.
Late in the story, there is mention that deliveries are down by 2/3rds.