S.F. Yellow Pages ban to be considered

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(01-31) 22:00 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco would become the first city in the nation to ban the unsolicited distribution of the Yellow Pages under legislation to be formally introduced today by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

The thick volumes, dropped off at nearly every home and office in the city, are becoming increasingly obsolete in the Internet age, Chiu says, and often end up unopened in the recycling bin.

His office estimates that more than 1.5 million Yellow Pages phone books are distributed in San Francisco every year.

"If we're serious about the environment, it's time we recognize that phone books are a 20th century tool that doesn't meet the business or environmental needs of the 21st century," said Chiu.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/31/BA761HGSAR.DTL

All this does is screw over poor people.

That it would be an option but it is an opt-in. You'd have to request one. This hurts;




Wait for it,






















Wait for it;





















AT&T, as of 2010, AT&T is the 7th largest company in the United States by total revenue, as well as the 4th largest non-oil company in the US (Behind Walmart, General Electric and Bank of America). It is the 3rd largest company in Texas by total revenue (Behind ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips) and the largest non-oil company in Texas. It is also the largest company headquartered in Dallas.<5> In 2010, Forbes listed AT&T as the 23rd largest company in the world by market value and the 18th largest non-oil company in the world by market value .<6>

In 2005, AT&T was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.<27><28><29>

On June 21, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that AT&T had rewritten rules on their privacy policy. The policy, which took effect June 23, 2006, says that "AT&T — not customers — owns customers' confidential info and can use it 'to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.' "<46>

On August 22, 2007, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell confirmed that AT&T was one of the telecommunications companies that assisted with the government's warrantless wire-tapping program on calls between foreign and domestic sources.<47>

On November 8, 2007, Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, told Keith Olbermann of MSNBC that all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access.<48>

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/AT%26T

They make HUGE profits off of advertising in the book. I owned a business some years back in a smaller market. I had a 1/4 page ad in the yellow pages. That cost me $250.00 per month. If I knew that only 10% of the population would receive the yellow pages next year I might not advertise in it. If I decided to advertise, I would expect a similar decrease in total advertising price to go along with my ad cost.

Mess with profits and the skies will open up and swallow SF.

both white and yellow pages.

along with my neighbors who don't pick them up.

they can ban mass delivery of them and send you yours directly.

what do you think?

probably some very large amount. There will be a promise to deliver and my yellow pages will never arrive.

Neighbors who don't pick up their phone books probably don't do much to maintain their yard/front porch in the first place. Not my problem.

all because you want one.

that is your problem.

it? It's not as though I'm going to stand over you and obligate you to use it.

How abut all the junk mail that arrives in your mailbox every day? I find that highly annoying, but I just toss it in the trash. I don't go out there and hold someone else responsible for the fact that it arrives.

who's being selfish?

you.

and have never requested them. They mold on the porch for a while until I recycle them. Total waste. You should def. have to opt in.

Opt-in is the way to go.

More and more people are going to cell phones for their phone needs anyway. Many of these phones have internet access built into them for looking up phone numbers.

Seems like print is mostly dead. Although I've recently purchased 3 novels.

Most distributions are due to multi-year contract....expect the book to get thin and disappear.

Most distributions are due to multi-year contract....expect the book to get thin and disappear.

There are many competitors in the game now beyond the phone book from the local phone company - such as the talking phone book. I get solicited every year from them, the yellow book, and the standard yellow pages.

They blanket the cities and town businesses selling space, and you almost have to advertise to be competitive depending on your line of work. I got out of the large ads in the phone books some time ago because it causes unbelievable phone volume and most of it was the folks that spend time calling around looking for the best deal. I never do the rope a dope sales gimmick to get people in the door only to ladle them with additional costs once in the operation.

For people who want them have a preorder system.

selling Yellow Pages advertising to businesses. The AT&T Yellow Pages sales group is union (CWA).

on the stoop.

Yellow Page books are increasingly on the decline. One maker Yellow Book ceased distribution to 6 major cities in Canada last year....

It is a dinosaur...I can find a number or business faster with my phone.

I know the content ain't exactly revolutionary, but I'm not sure a ban on any type of publishing is the best way to go.

publishing but rather one of prohibiting distribution of something you neither need nor want.

nt

they go straight to recycling, and it erks me that trees are cut down for this shit. (or recycled paper, even.)

Seems to me that the free market will take care of this. At some point the advertising revenue will not support the cost of distributing them to every household.

Besides, it would be quite difficult to write a law that would pass constitutional muster. Free speech and all that. At the least you would probably have to ban ALL unsolicited distribution of printed material - clearly the Yellow Pages could not be singled out - and it is not clear to me that even that would pass constitutional muster. Maybe one could ban distributing more than some specified weight - that might work. But why bother if the market will take care of it anyway - as it most surely will?