Something I don't get; why would Yellow Pages publishers WANT to distribute their books to people who pro-actively declare that they don't want them? Seems to me the City is doing them a favor by compiling this list for them.
@2 Businesses pay to be included in the Yellow Pages and the amount is based largely on how many people receive them. By delivering to everyone, whether they want one or not, the publisher can show higher numbers to the businesses they are trying to convince to buy a spot and charge more for it. Having large numbers of people opt out would decrease the perceived value of buying a spot in the yellow pages, decreasing the number of businesses included and driving down prices for ads and profits for the publisher.
How is this a slippery slope to an opt-out on newspapers? Aren't newspapers exclusively opt-in? If you don't want it, you just don't pay them.
If, though, the slippery slope is that newspapers would have to pay for their recycling costs, that's a consequence I can deal with. I hope they force junk mailers to pay recycling costs, too.
@2 and @4 - This is part of the issue I've never understood about the yellow pages. Are they claiming those circulation numbers based on books that sit rotting in front of apartment buildings, or are immediately recycled? Do the yellow pages issue white sheets?
These yellow pages people are like the crazy ex-girl (or boy-)friend that just can't accept that s/he has been dumped. Fucking get over it, assholes. You've been replaced by the internet/fleshlight/iPhone/iDevice
The supposed threat of lawsuit cracks me up, too... there's pretty good precedent out there in the ordinance's favor -- from the US Supreme Court decision Rowan v US Post Office (1970):
"We ...categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even "good" ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often "captives" outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere..."
@8 wins. Godden's concern is that her ancient brethren will have nothing to sit on to see over the wheel of the land-yacht that they shouldn't be legally allowed to drive.
If, though, the slippery slope is that newspapers would have to pay for their recycling costs, that's a consequence I can deal with. I hope they force junk mailers to pay recycling costs, too.
And I hope they force governments to pay for every bullet they fire.
Oh. Wait. Fuck.
"We ...categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even "good" ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often "captives" outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere..."
Sounds rather clear-cut.