Who do you trust to make sure the Yellow Pages are kept off your doorstep if you don’t want them: the yellow pages companies that have been supposedly doing this for years (and delivering them anyway) or the city?
That’s the latest question in the phone book saga. The Yellow Pages Association has seized upon Seattle’s budget problems to argue why they—and not the City of Seattle—should be in charge of an opt-out system.
After The Stranger reported that the City Council’s Public Utilities and Neighborhoods Committee has recommended a city-run system that allows denizens to register if they don’t want yellow pages, YPA sent a statement explaining why it’s a bad idea.
“It will hurt local small businesses and strain overburdened city resources,” said YPA President Neg Norton. “We believe the proposed ordinance unfairly targets one form of advertising media and likely will not hold up under legal challenge.” The YPA promises to update its current site to a centralized opt-out system which they say will make it the first national one-stop site for consumers to opt out of delivery. Norton says that YPA’s updated site won’t burden city employees or taxpayers.
The full city council is scheduled to vote Monday on the yellow pages ordinance, which would keep the city in charge and impose a recycling fee on the phone book companies.
Whatever good intentions YPA has, their proposal appears to be a last-ditch attempt to sway the council’s vote and save themselves from city enforcement. When I asked O’Brien why he wasn’t considering YPA’s proposal, he said it doesn’t go “far enough to address the concerns of citizens.” O’Brien said he crafted the ordinance to make sure yellow pages companies keep their word, which they haven’t been doing so far.
YPA’s argument that the city’s opt-out system would be a burden on city staff and tax payers smells like BS. That’s exactly why the city is charging them a fee—to take care of the registry and the recycling costs. The city could essentially let YPA take over the opt-out system, but then who would be responsible for enforcement? Plus, the real issue here is that YPA is scared that Seattle’s ordinance will be copied nationally, which it should be.
Everybody (including the publishers of yellow pages directories) knows that the only reason they don’t want this is because the sheer, overwhelming majority of people no longer NEED their archaic, tree-killing service, and they’re terrified that when advertisers discover how useless this product has become in the age of instant online and smart phone search engine technology they’ll find better ways to waste their ad budgets and the revenue-stream will dry up over night.
I guess they’re betting that, IF they can convince the City to let them continue to run the shoddy, clearly ineffectual opt-out service they claim they’ve had in place all this time, that they can continue to pad the numbers, or at least somehow manage to control the erosion of the stream enough to give them time to figure out some new scheme to keep the suckers – er, advertisers – on-the-hook for a while longer.
We’re supposedly a green city that’s proud of that fact; go to legal war with them if we have to and then countersue to recoup legal costs.
I’m looking forward to tossing unwanted yellow pages into the Billionaires’ Tunnel in the near future.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind letting the industry try to run its own program, if said program is as thoroughly put together as is the City ordinance. Where’s their draft program? I’d like to read it and judge for myself.
Riiiiight @4, because they’ve been running their own program sooooo effectively all these years, that they really should be given the chance to – um, continue to run that same program, they’ve been running.
they wouldn’t even take the phonebooks back when they were still delivering on my block .. what would possibly make me think they would honestly operate an opt out program?
YP’s come to my door in droves.
I’ve been on their opt out list for years and yet they still come.
I’m not against the publication of Yellow Pages. I’m against the unwanted deliveries and resulting wastefulness/litter on my front porch.
The YP publishers will not and have not self regulated. As a citizen I ask the city to step in to regulate the out of control industry. I’d forgo a week of street snowplowing this winter to fund this effort. Keep the yellow out of our snow!!!!!
YP’s come to my door in droves.
I’ve been on their opt out list for years and yet they still come.
I’m not against the publication of Yellow Pages. I’m against the unwanted deliveries and resulting wastefulness/litter on my front porch.
The YP publishers will not and have not self regulated. As a citizen I ask the city to step in to regulate the out of control industry. I’d forgo a week of street snowplowing this winter to fund this effort. Keep the yellow out of our snow!!!!!
Posted by Your Name Here on September 30, 2010 at 4:36 PM