Opt Out of the Yellow Pages

My first internship in college was working for Sprint Publishing and Advertising (one of the largest yellow pages providers in the country at that time). This was before the Internet was used by hardly anyone outside of universities, research and development, and government. I was tasked with task of trying to electronify their yellow pages. Twenty years on, the Yellow Pages companies never figured that out and the world has passed them by. Yet, every year yellow pages end up being thrown somewhere on your lawn by some random car that drives by. My only hope is that it isn’t too far from the recycle bin… so it’s not much effort to toss it immediately in.

This year I finally took the step I should have for years now — opting out of the yellow pages. The process is simple. Go to www.yellowpagesoptout.com. You provide your zipcode and they will show you the publications that could be delivered to you. Then you can opt out for some or all of them. The only catch is that they need your address, email, and phone number. They promise that they will not use your information. However, I never really believe that. So, I use my gmail address that handles spam effectively and give them a Google Voice number, so my cell phone doesn’t start to get spammed.

It was about a 3 minute effort and hopefully those efforts will save at least a tree or two.