- R.B.
- Mike O’Brien’s personal collection
It’s back to the drawing board for the proposed city-administered opt-out phone book bill. Council Member Mike O’Brien, who was expected to introduce the legislation at the City Council’s Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee meeting Tuesday said that the city needs more time to figure out “who will administer the opt-out list.”
Ultimately, O’Brien’s legislation seeks to prohibit distribution of the yellow pages to those who don’t want them. It would also fine phone book publishers for flaunting the law, making it the toughest phone book bill in the country.
So of course it’s not surprising that yellow pages publishers (who somehow refuse to believe that Google is the new yellow pages) want no such thing. Heavy hitters from some of the biggest names in the $12 billion yellow pages publishing industry, a.k.a. sharks in suits, circled the Council Chambers Tuesday, lobbying the committee against unfairly singling them out. They even brought up constitutional rights—”Yellow Pages are commercial speech entitled to protection under the First Amendment,” said Neg Norton, president of the Yellow Pages Association, the main trade organization for yellow pages publishers nationally, who flew cross-country to speak at the meeting. Others issued caveats. Maggie Stonecipher, who was representing Dex, the biggest phone book delivery company in Seattle, said that imposing a fee “on a single media is legally questionable, unfair, and inconsistent with how the city has managed other Zero Waste initiatives.”
Norton, who acknowledged that he wasn’t entirely anti opt-out—”we have no incentive in delivering yellow pages to people who don’t want them”—said that he realized the current system wasn’t working too well. Anecdotal evidence shows that phone book companies continue to deliver yellow pages to people who have already opted out. But, Norton said, “any regulation requirements should be reasonable… we don’t want new taxes.”
O’Brien assured The Stranger after the meeting that the yellow pages folks had not scared him away. “The meat of the legislation will still be the same,” he said. “Right now five different phone book companies in Seattle have five different opt-out lists—we want to have a single list. Phone book companies are concerned that if every city created their own list, then it would prove to be a huge burden not just on them, but the cities as well.”
As a result O’Brien said he wants to invent a system all other cities can use too—”maybe one provider who makes it really simple to administer the list.”
Seattle might look at Catalog Choice, O’Brien said, a free service for unwanted mail which has just started getting into the opt-out system. Whatever it is, we won’t find out until September, which is when the committee meets next. Until then, watch out for both yellow pages deliveries and yellow pages spin.
First amendment doesn’t apply if the books are disallowed on a case-by-case “we don’t want it” basis.
Anyone opting out is doing so because they haven’t opened a phone book in years. For my part, I throw a couple of them straight into the recycle can each year. Is doing that denying them constitutional rights? Sheesh. They just want to keep numbers up so they can bring in revenue based on distribution.
I know what the yellow pages folks should do! They should pay writers for content, and make it like a news source/ farmer’s almanac, in addition to a phone directory.
Wait, that’s what the P.I. was up to when they folded. nvm. They’re doomed.
“It would also fine phone book publishers for flaunting the law, making it the toughest phone book bill in the country.”
I think you mean “flouting”.
“[W]e have no incentive in delivering yellow pages to people who don’t want them” (Norton, President of Yellow Pages).
Yes, telling potential advertisers that you have a total distribution of X number of books is an incentive. When those advertisers find out that they’ve half the books they’ve been paying for ads in have gone straight to recycling, they will be less likely to pay, or pay the same amount, for an ad.
Can’t we just issue a massive no trespassing letter towards anyone on the clock for the yellow pages? Then if we find a book, we can file charges for trespassing (or littering should it be outside of your property).
Can I make a deal, you stop delivering the paper to my door and I’ll give you my e-mail address. Every time a new book comes out e-mail me a PDF file or something. That way when I’m done with it, and it’s time to throw it in the trash, the amount of electricity used doesn’t kill as many trees. Please?
What this anonymous commenter said. In fact, shouldn’t a simple “NO TRESPASSING BY DEX/VERIZON/etc.” sign posted on one’s property be sufficient?
The First Amendment doesn’t give you the right to come onto my property and leave garbage, scumbags.
Remember when the city tried to tax plastic grocery bags? When the plastics industry threw a shitload of money at an initiative to kill it? Good times.
Expect the same here. If the city actually passes this, Dex, et al, will throw a ton of money at an initiative to get it reversed. If they don’t, their business will be gutted.
Flouting, not flaunting
I like the idea of a sign on the door. Kind of like “No Soliciting” but a bit more specific. Not sure what the best wording could be, but something that MANY could agree on so the message would come across clearly.
“Leave no phonebooks/yellow pages, etc”
Sound good? Any ideas?
@8:
Except that, I’m guessing the number of people who actually USE phone books these days is rapidly dwindling to a very small minority, whereas almost everybody still uses grocery bags. So, while the phone book publishers might still throw a fuck-ton of money at trying to convince people to reverse the opt-out, I’m guessing they might not be nearly as successful as the National Plastics Council or whatever group backed the “keep the bags” campaign.
It’s like they see advertising as sacrosanct. There needs to be regulation of advertising. It is impossible to watch a newscast (especially local news) without a commercial interruption every few minutes. Local TV news is a joke. It is really an hour long commercial with a few news breaks in between.
I say people should boycott any company that advertises during the news. I’ll bet no station in the country would even allow a person on the air who questions how much advertising goes on.
Boycott companies who advertise during the news!
I did the opt-out thing, but I’m exceedingly skeptical that it’ll work. There’s no way in hell the minimum-wage delivery folks they’re hiring to dump these things on doorsteps are using a list. They’re just going to every door. So I plan on contacting the publishers and requesting they send someone to my house to remove the fucking things.
And, as someone pointed out on one of the other threads about this, if they truly had a disincentive to deliver phone books to those who don’t want them, they’d be using opt-in, not opt-out – in other words, they would ONLY deliver to those who specifically requested the books, they’d stop the blanket distributions. But, as @4 pointed out, that statement (about them having no incentive to deliver to those who don’t want them) is untrue in any case, because they state right on the damn cover of the yellow pages books, “delivered to x number of homes and businesses!”
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Re: Phone Book Companies Lobby Against Opt-Out Bill as O’Brien Regroups
Yeah! The telephone books are evil and should be destroyed! Phone book delivery drivers ran over my dog last week! The yellow volumes destroyed my marriage, cost me my job, and left me for dead by the side of the road in the Gobi desert! Let’s get ’em!
How about we focus on jobs creation and fixing the economy instead of a pointless discussion like this. Seriously people, how hard is it to take a phone book to a recycling center or go to http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com?