Yellow Pages Legislation: It’s Happening in MN
Jan.02, 2009 in
Yellow Pages
What’s the best news you’ve heard all day? How about a plan in Minnesota to make it easier to opt-out of phone book deliveries:
Thanks to Rep. Paul Gardner, (DFL-Shoreview) for taking on this nagging issue.
It’s funny that the Yellow Pages Industry seems to be against this by stating that 85% of people use phone books. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it benefit them and the local businesses they serve by not sending phone books to the 15% of households that no longer use them? Everybody wins.
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Wow, what a nice little belated Christmas present for you.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Before the snow covered them, there were mounds of phone books on top of community mailboxes, still wrapped in their plastic, one month after delivery to some townhomes down the street from us. There’s nothing that says waste of money more then these water logged books that no one uses.
I actually kept ours for “emergencies”. Well I decided to use it the other day, but couldn’t find what I was looking for…went to the Interent and found the info with-in seconds! LOL! Needless to say, but phone books are becoming as obsolete as land lines.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Happy day indeed, Ed!
I’m going to take a stab here… I’m guessing the YP industry is against this opt-out because it would make it more difficult for them to artificially pad their stats to make it look like more people read the print book than they actually do?
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Three thoughts…
1. In Jennifer’s case it also shows which houses are empty if the phone books continue to sit around
2. I was covering in the office at the school I work at and an older teacher came in looking for a phone book. While they looked for the book and looked up the number I was able to search for it online and got it before she did. The kicker, she had already spent several minutes in her room looking for a phone book.
3. Today at a mall in Indianapolis I saw a rack at the entrance full of phone books. If someone really wanted a phone book you could pick one up while out shopping.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Lol I want to opt out, it usually stays in the front of my door, cuz i won’t let it go inside my house…
Keep up the good work!
January 6th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Thanks for your article
We are trying to implement a opt in system.
take a look at our webpage
http://www.stopthephonebooks.com
January 9th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
This is fantastic. Thank you for posting about this.
I haven’t used a physical phone book in years. In fact, I tried to use one while working in an unfamiliar office last week and it didn’t go very well. Google’s so much faster!
Not only is YP operating on a terrifically wasteful model, it’s bad business to sell ads with artificially high viewer numbers. Boo….