Pro phone-book PR flacks, about a dozen of them, descended on the City Council’s Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee meeting today to oppose an opt-out registry and a recovery fee for yellow pages in the city.
Fed up with seeing phone book publishers ignoring requests to stop delivering big, bulky yellow pages, Seattle Council Member Mike O’Brien has proposed a single city-run opt-out system which would allow citizens to sign up if they don’t want these books. O’Brien’s legislation would prohibit yellow pages publishers from distributing books to people on the list and even punish them for flouting the law.
At issue is a 40 cent fine for every unwanted phone book that gets delivered to somebody’s doorstep. Phone book companies are arguing that this “recovery” fee is a violation of their First Amendment rights. “We think it’s unnecessary,” YPA president Neg Norton told The Stranger. “It unfairly targets a single advertising medium, exposing the city to costly legal challenges for years to come.”
Heather Trim of Zero Waste Seattle said that the city should not have to pay for recovering phone books. If yellow pages companies sue, the Seattle Public Utilities acknowledged that their argument might actually hold some weight in court.
But perhaps the biggest PR stunt was pulled by the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) just hours before O’Brien was scheduled to unveil the new plan. The YPA sent out a press release announcing their own plan for a one-stop-shop online registry that would allow visitors to stop the delivery of one or all directories to their homes. The current YPA site only gives people information about opt-out programs with individual publishers.
“It’s the solution to Seattle’s yellow pages problem,” Norton said. The committee finally decided to explore the legal ramifications of a fee. “It’s important for the City of Seattle to take bold action, at the same time we can take a few weeks,” O’Brien said. The committee, which was considering voting today, deferred instead.
C’mon folks, it’s time to stop dragging your feet and make a decision. Pronto. It’s way too much time to waste on phone books. Seriously.
they have a first amendment right to litter tons of waste all over the city? fuck them. fuck the yellow pages. fuck their douchenozzle lobbyists. fuck the council for lacking any cahones and dragging their feet.
First amendment rights? So can I just throw garbage out my car window, then claim first amendment when I am cited for littering? That is what DEX does once a year to me. They throw garbage on my lawn. Why can’t I be compensated for the trouble of disposing with their litter?
They probably do have a First Amendment right, but only because the dumbasses on the Supreme Court have ruled that corporate advertising is protected speech. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
Stupid motherfuckers will sign up and immediately acknowledge their own existence to these leeches, attaching a name and trackable info and immediately end up buried in spam and other sources of income for these companies.
No, seriously, get the fuck out of here with that shit, yellow pages companies.
Can’t we just throw them from the freeway overpasses when the Phone company vans go by?
Why should we be any less inane with the First Amendment than the Second?
@5
isn’t that the purpose of the aurora bridge’s ‘commit suicide elsewhere/waste of money’ barrier?
Like everyone else said, Fuck them. Apparently, we’ll need to schedule a bookburning after all.
This is some pretty well-crafted passive-aggressive doublespeak. Unfortunately I think Ms. Norton is overlooking the drawbacks of having some delivery person dropping phonebooks on my porch. I think it’s unnecessary. It unfairly puts the burden of douchebaggery on the delivery person, exposing him to a richly-deserved ass-kicking.
I’m also curious what the technical difference is between them dumping their advertisements on my porch and me dumping my paper recycling in their lobby, especially if I call it an advertisement for my art.
Baconcat: when O’Brien first started making noise about this, there was a Slog post about it that also had a link to a web-based yellow pages opt-out system run by Dex. The form asked for a lot of information, so I checked out the privacy policy. It was refreshingly honest, and made it clear that they reserve the right to sell your personal information in any capacity they choose.
If Dex wants to claim a First Amendment right to dump their books on my doorstep, I think we should have a First Amendment right to burn a pile of them in front of their corporate offices.
It’s a much better idea than burning the Quaran.
Can we just start taking the addresses of the offices these folks work in and start dropping our phone books off in front of their doors? Preferably during the off hours when they’re not there. So they just arrive to find a bag with two books in it.
If they’re free to do it, then I imagine we have the “right” to do so as well.
Wouldn’t it be trespassing if you have indicated that they aren’t welcome on your property, and they walk up and deposit their junk on your land? Property law usually wins in fights with the other laws doesn’t it?
Fuck them! Business mail gets charged .80 cents to a dollar to have mail returned to them. They should be charging 2$
Nobody wants these thing, they just pile up in apartment lobbies, the internet has effectively killed this business model.
This reminds me of the national Do-Not-Call list that was created like a decade ago. Y’know, the one that was ruled unconstitutional because the douchebag telemarketer lobbyists also cried foul, citing their First Amendment rights to harass us at home. The only difference is that with the latter business model, you can (theoretically) opt out if you ask them to remove your number from their list. It seems there’s no such method in place with these assholes.
I’d like to ban flyering on cars. Too often unwanted flyers are tucked under wipers, even stuffed in cracked windows. They all go unread, just like phonebooks.
> At issue is a 40 cent fine
OK, let’s make it a dollar.
They’re claiming all corporate money is “free speech”, fuck Citizens United Not Timid.
Most people over 50 want a new phone-book. Almost everyone under 30 does not. The YPA should cross its fingers that we, the children and grandchildren of America’s reluctant computer users, don’t ever show the older Americans in our life how to use “The Googles” and “The Yelpers” to find out when stores are open and who the best mechanic in town is.
If the YPA was smart, it would only deliver the physical phone-book to Seattle’s gray-hairs. I have no idea what the specific cut-off age would be, but I’m sure there’s some marketing twit who could figure it out. If they want to survive after baby boomers start dropping, they should start focusing on providing localized online directories of services that provide something Yelp doesn’t — info that isn’t just user-generated would be the obvious direction to go, in my opinion. If the YP had professional business reviewers like we have professional art, food, and film critics, it could stay relevant for the next few generations.
fuck this shit, spend time on it its worth it. fuck FUCKKKK
How about a 40 dollar fine instead of 40 cents?
I can see it now – burning telephone books falling from overpasses onto I-5.
Sweet.
I happen to use phone books on a regular basis. I prefer them over the Internet. Just because the young people don’t like them, doesn’t mean we stop making them. I don’t always like receiving multiple books each year but all I do is use the phone book companies website to opt out of receiving their book. What is so hard about that? It’s only a phone book! Lots of anger and wasted energy over something so small.