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San Francisco Votes to Ban Yellow Pages

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors cast a 10-1 first vote to ban unrequested home and business delivery of the hefty telephone directories. There will be a final vote next week.

Those in favor argue the law is necessary to protect the environment, fight neighborhood blight, and help the economy. Proponents of the law further argue that the Internet makes the directories unnecessary. Those who oppose the law argue that it is a restriction of free speech rights.

According to the Sierra Club, AT&T distributes nearly 1 million phone books per year to San Francisco alone, equaling over 5 million pounds of paper for just one city in California. This figure doesn’t include other business directory book deliveries. According to statistics,  approximately 70% of U.S. adults rarely or never use the phone book. Some cities in the U.S., such as Seattle, are creating their own ordinances to allow residents to opt out of receiving yellow pages.  National Yellow Pages Association and the Association of Directory Publishers have recently launched YellowPagesOptOut, a website where customers can easily cancel their home delivery service. Anyone can acces the site at the following link to opt out of yellow page delivery:

http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/05/11/us/AP-US-Yellow-Pages-Ban.html?_r=1&ref=us

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/yellow-pages-ban-proposed_n_820291.html