San Francisco Set to Ban Unsolicited Phone Books

Please let this spread nationwide and be generalized to more forms of advertising. It's just littering at this point.<p>I know somebody pays for them, but people pay for their fast food wrappers, too, and they aren't allowed to leave them on other people's porches. I paid for the beer in my fridge, but I'm not going to leave a bag of empties hanging from my neighbor's doorknob.<p>I really don't know how the legal exception works, how the law distinguishes one act of spewing worthless crap into the environment from another, but it should be possible to cut down on the constant flyers under wiper blades, takeout menus on doorknobs, etc., and still let people put up posters about lost pets, local missing persons, and neighborhood garage sales.

When my wife and I moved out of our apartment a few years ago, after most of the stuff was moved out including the computers, we happened to need to look up a phone number. It <i>literally</i> did not occur to us that there was even a way to look up a phone number without using the internet. Meanwhile we were tripping over a pile of dusty yellow books that were one of the last things we left in the apartment (and weren't taking with us).<p>After 20 minutes I finally remembered "oh, that's what those yellow books are for". It's just how infrequently we've cracked open a phone book - which is to say never since 1993. I can tell you, for anyone in their 20's, that phone book goes straight from the doorstep to the dustbin, just like the paper newspaper. Good riddance!

I would love to see this nationwide. Every time another 3" thick unwanted phonebook is left by my mailbox it just irritates the hell out of me. I can't believe there are still enough businesses that want to advertise in yellow pages to make it a viable industry for ONE providers, much less 3 or 4.

Isn't crazy that people are allowed to dump things on your house and car? And this is protected because somehow it is free speech? Forget that it forces you to clean up afterwards.<p>So companies can impose costs upon you. You have to be responsible and see the garbage to its rightful place. And deal with garbage all over the urban landscape.<p>But if we changed this and required companies to ask first, this would supposedly be too costly for them. But only because we've been forced to subsidize their activities all along.

Seattle has already done this, except in Seattle it is an opt-out list, similar to the "do not call" list.<p>There was a story about this on NPR today, and they compared Seattle's approach to San Francisco's. The SF approach is drawing a lot of opposition from advocates and aid groups from the poor and the elderly. The fear is that there are a lot of people who do not use online directories and depend on their phone books to look up numbers.<p>In general, when you have some service that at one point nearly everyone depends on, and then as time passes many people start needing less and less, it seems to me to make the most sense to switch it to an opt-out service for existing people so that you don't disrupt those who still depend on it, and make it opt-in for new people.

Actually, I'm in the target audience for phone books. I love receiving those (within reason). I wish I had more right now.<p>Why? Two main reasons. One is for actually looking up local telephone numbers. I prefer this to looking them up on the Web in many cases: the paper book doesn't call home, the business directory is harder to game, and it's all pre-localized. And it doesn't take away the choice of looking things up on the Web if I feel it's necessary, at the cost of some extra traceability &#38;c.<p>The second reason is that I use extras as structural supports. Monitor too low (for instance)? Wrap phone book in duct tape. Now it's a brick. Construct environmental modifications out of phone bricks. They're relatively light while being solid, and they're already bound together, so you don't have the trouble of trying to make the rectilinear shape ex nihilo. I suppose I could buy stacks of newsprint paper or something, but going out and buying things is awkward, and phone books are often distributed free, so I'm only paying for time and duct tape.

<p><pre><code> When's the last time you looked up a number in the phone book? For us, it was probably around 1999. </code></pre> Actually I like having it downstairs, I find it quicker than looking up on my phone, and saves the hassle of getting to a computer. That said, I do agree that shipping that many trees to so many people who don't want them is pretty awful.

I actually use my phone book at least two or three times a year; partly because some of the information just isn't easily findable online (I live in a smaller city) and partly because it's sometimes just more convenient to look it up in the book.<p>That said, I don't know that I need an updated book every single year.

Awesome.<p>A few years back I was on the board of my HOA (77 unit loft structure in downtown San Diego) and this was an issue that came up every quarter. We repeatedly asked for them to stop doing it - that it was wasteful, that it was unwanted solicitation against our CC&#38;Rs, didn't matter. The phone company left 77 phone books in our lobby every time. Within the same day we had maintenance dump the whole lot in the recycling bin.<p>The main issue is that the recipients of the books aren't the clients, the advertisers are. That this is unwanted activity makes no difference to them. As long as they can claim to deliver a phone book, they can use that as a statistic for advertisers. If you want to stop this activity one tactic might be to alert major advertisers.

I keep telling my wife that if I were Mayor, that it would be legal to leaflet cars, but it would be a $5 fine for every one found on the ground.<p>Sticking those things under my wiper is like saying "here you throw this away"[1].<p><i>[1] credit to Mitch Hedberg</i>

I could live with the ONE phonebook that I would have used in the days when you actually used phonebooks. But nowadays, I never use the phonebook (and I'm a weirdo who still mails letters), but there seems to be like a half dozen phonebook providers.

Apparently you can opt out at: <a href="http://yellowpagesoptout.com/" rel="nofollow">http://yellowpagesoptout.com/</a> If enough people do so then it would achieve the same thing.

While I wholeheartedly agree with conserving our natural resources, I'm pretty sure this law is going to be overturned on the basis that it is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment's freedom of speech. It's been a long time since my Constitutional Law class, but IIRC there are many precedents, several involving Jehova's witnesses (they were a persecuted minority at the time), passing out leaflets and flyers and having similar laws passed and overturned.<p>Here's a similar situation in Texas in 2005: <a href="http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/federal-judge-texas-man-may-leaflet-in-illinois-state-building" rel="nofollow">http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/federal-judge-texas-man-...</a><p>U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo ruled earlier this month that the law violates the Constitution because it gives state officials too much discretion in determining when to issue permits and prohibits religious exhibits. Castillo also faulted the law for banning people who want to distribute leaflets from approaching the public without providing an exception in cases where people consent to being approached.<p>“The judge reaffirmed the First Amendment principles and showed that the First Amendment rights are valued in Chicago,” said Elizabeth Murray, whose client Kevin Cantrell filed the lawsuit in April 2004 against officials at the Thompson Center and the state Department of Central Management Services. The center is the state's main government building in Chicago.<p>“This also protects more than just religious leafletters. It protects all who want to leaflet, so it is of great value to the citizens of Illinois,” said Murray, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented Cantrell.