Don't Want a Phonebook? Give Up Your Privacy 357
newscloud writes "Seattle will soon shut down its popular phonebook opt-out website as a result of a costly settlement with Yellow Pages publishers. Going forward, the only way to stop unwanted phonebook deliveries will be to visit the industry's opt out site and provide them with your personal information. They will share it with their clients, most of whom are direct marketing agencies, who in turn commit not to use it improperly. The Federal Court of Appeals ruled in October that The Yellow Pages represent protected free speech of corporations (including Canada's Yellow Media Inc.); defending and settling the lawsuit cost Seattle taxpayers $781,503. The city said the program's popularity led to a reduction of 2 million pounds of paper waste annually."
Re:File a police complaint for littering (Score:5, Insightful)
I was wondering the same thing. If it isn't littering, then I should be able to throw trash in anyones yard and call it speech.
Disposal fee (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what happens if as a private citizen I post a notice on my property saying that any unsolicited material deposited on my property will incur a disposal fee of $100 per item, and then bill the YP company for my disposing of the trash they left without permission?
Reminder: freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to use someone else's property without permission. You want to speak, use public property or hire your own hall.
Market really will solve this. (Score:5, Insightful)
How long can they sell advertisement in books nobody looks at?
Just ignore them. They save me from grabbing the free local rag to start my BBQ. Weather I burn Yellow pages or Yellow journalism it's the same amount of paper. This way the 'News and Review' doesn't get a wrong impression and think anybody is actually reading them.
Right now, business's are buying yellow pages adds because they always have. Give it a little while.
Re:Take .... many phone books to the court house. (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't you been paying attention lately? It's free speech for corporate entities with legal departments, not for you. You'll get arrested and be declaring bankruptcy before your trial even starts. Not to mention kicked around a bit on your way to the holding cell.
Re:Profitability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the readers are not the ones paying for it.
The businesses that advertise are. Often small businesses will advertise hoping for some result and since the cost is so low many such businesses will advertise.
So then my taxes have to pay to dispose of their waste? Can I mail my trash to you to dispose of?
Re:File a police complaint for littering (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally recycle bins don't go to landfills...
But generally the yellow pages seem to conveniently come on trash day. I just toss them into my recycle bin, and be done with it. They are becoming irrelevant, and eventually people will stop advertising with them.
Right now they are trying to use what amounts to extortion tactics.
Formerly: OK, we aren't going to use your product, so don't waste your money on giving it to use.
Now: OK, you're going to get our product no matter what, unless you want to be annoyed to death.
Tossing it in the recycle/trash bin is less annoying and costs them more money, so I promote that option, since they want to be bastards about it.
Re:File a police complaint for littering (Score:4, Insightful)
The city did take notice. And lose the resulting lawsuit.
It's one thing to not read TFA, but dude, you didn't even read the summary.
Re:File a police complaint for littering (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that this was a case of the city offering an opt out for the phonebooks. It's not a legitimate 1st amendment issue, there is no right to an audience anywhere in the 1st amendment. Now, had the city made it opt in, that likely would have been different, but the courts seriously fucked up the ruling by suggesting that the people don't have a right to say no to the deliveries through the city's system.
The city wasn't making demands on what the books could contain or preventing them from reaching people that wanted copies, the city was just running an opt out list. The reality is that most people don't use the phonebooks anyways and most of them wind up being used as booster seats or tossed in the recycle bin immediately. I can't recall the last time I looked up a number in the phonebook due to the books not being any more up to date as online listings and less convenient to search.
The courts though decided to find in favor of corporate interests again without any plausible justification for doing so.
Simple and worthwhile solution... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) The idiots forcing you to receive worthless phone book have wasted money.
2) The idiots sending you other worthless junk have wasted money.
3) The Post Office gets money.
Re:Profitability? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the same reason spam went away!
Re:File a police complaint for littering (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, yes I do in fact have that right, this is fundamentally no different from other unsolicited commercial messages. I don't recall the judges saying there was anything wrong with the CAN SPAM Act. Which is precisely the same thing.
The city government just said that you have to obey the wishes of the people on our list to not receive your messages or face a fine. This is not squashing anybody's freedom of speech. The phone book companies still had any number of ways in which to distribute their books, they just couldn't do so to people that were requesting to opt out.
So, you're saying, that I should have to drive or take the bus to a collection site in order to dispose of the phone book that I didn't want in the first place, because the phonebook companies choose to saddle me with the book I was never consulted on in the first place? That's roughly $20 worth of time and energy right there, even for somebody working for minimum wage taking the bus.
We have the right to free speech, we don't have the right to an audience. By your logic we could never regulate unsolicited commercial messages because you'd be infringing upon the rights of corporate entities to reach their audience.
Re:Why do you need a phone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like many other people, I maintain a open wifi connection specifically to provide for public access. Likewise, I maintain an open 144 MHz repeater, and a while ago, a packet BBS that could take and deliver email. I also write free software such as this [fyngyrz.com]. When I mean something to be free, or shared for free, there's no negative to taking advantage of that. When I write commercial software, I make sure that I've made the transaction required clear.
Many commercial and/or public establishments make open wifi available; coffee houses, McDonalds, libraries, etc. Doesn't hurt a thing to use those connections.
Now if you prefer not sharing, that's fine -- that's your choice. If you want your connection(s) closed, then by all means close them. The point of an open connection is that it's open. Such things can be used responsibly. A text message, simple text email or IM is absolutely insignificant to any particular wifi connection. A compressed voice connection isn't horrible, bandwidth-wise, either. The more open connections there are, the better it all works as far as portability goes.
Just FYI, the financial benefit I was talking about was the lack of a phone bill; in such a situation, you need to keep your own wifi available, obviously, and you can certainly use that, and keep it closed, without using anyone else's if you want to. You know, it was only a few years ago that almost no one had a portable phone. We survived just fine that way.
Perhaps you might consider learning to share a bit. You know, like open source or free software. Or not. I don't care. I posted to offer those who were open minded a change to consider an opportunity. Not to convert anyone. I'm already phone-bill free, you see.
As for stealing, I'm pretty sure you don't know what that word means. :)