Comments

1
So dumping garbage on people's lawns is protected speech.
2
What? Don't I have the right to restrict your speech in my place of residence? The law wasn't about stopping or legally restricting the printing of the phone books, or even distribution of them in a "public square", but about residential distribution. I choose to not buy certain books because I don't like the content, but my decision doesn't mean those books ought to go out of print (though, if they're junk, all the better if they do). Forced distribution seems like a different animal altogether... Is my doorstep legally THAT type of public?
3
Who still buys the very expensive yellow page ads that fuel the directory industry? I'm not sure my teen-aged daughters even know what the yellow pages are. I'm one of the olds and even I haven't had a printed phone directory in my house for years. Why do advertisers continue to fork over the money for this medium?
4
Wow. The judicial system behind the times on yet another issue. What a shocker.
5
This needs to go to SCOTUS. I'm charged for garbage and recycling: how the hell does Dex have legal protection to compel me to clean up at cost their free speech on my property?
6
Could you please give the Physical Address of the Court of Appeals?

I'm thinking a few tons of phone books stacked at all their entrances might cause them to reconsider this.
7
@5 for the They're Taking My Property! win.
8
By the court's logic, does that make anti-graffiti laws unconstitutional?
9
One of the inalienable rights of property ownership is the right to exclude whomever you want from your property. Maybe the ordinance should be rewritten so residents have the right to exclude phone book delivery people from their property.
10
Can we just shoot the phone book delivery people using Stand and Defend laws we have on the books in Washington State?

They're not USPS so it's legal.

Just saying.
11
I don't get it. I opted out - I expressed my speech.
12
What's a "Phonebook"?
13
Nobody else saw this coming?
14
Corporations are people, my friend!
15
Or in this case, yellow pages are people. People who get First Amendment rights.

I'm a little unclear on how exactly a business delivering things to a private doorstep violates a First Amendment right. Can someone of the legal persuasion explain what reasoning the 9th Circuit Court is using in this case?
16
I don't understand how the phone book showing up unsolicited without any process for denying it is free speech, but when someone called you unsolicited, that is okay to deny? I want to be able to block things that annoy me. The phone book being one of those things, such a waste.
17
Gus, well, I saw it coming; I even posted something to that effect here when the law was passed. Not to rub it in or anything.

Rain Muffin: Reasoning? There isn't any. The Ninth Circuit is on drugs. Always has been. And not the good kind.
18
@17, I remember! And a raft of shit flew your way for being so kind as to bring it up, if I recall. ah well.
19
No time to read the ruling, but I'm guessing they're saying you can't impose rules (and fees) ONLY on the Yellow Pages without extending that to EVERY publication someone might want to distribute.

The city may just have to rewrite the ordinance.
20
@19 Hopefully they'll cast a wider net so I won't get Scientology flyers and menus for shitty Italian restaurants on my doorstep anymore.
21
So, if Corporations are People, can I loot the mansions of the CEO and other execs who are littering on my property?

... Well?

Fair is fair.
22
@20 oh, hey, big call out and a thumbs up to Kylie's Chicago Pizza in Fremont who donated 1/3 of all proceeds to the NON-Komen breast cancer cause this past Friday! You rock!
23
What part of OPT OUT did they miss? Do not want.

Does this mean that if I have enough money I can jam MY free speech down anyone else's gullet whenever I please?

Also: Won't someone think of the TREE-Ldren!

I'll note that the Yellow Pages were produced long after the White Pages disappeared. The White Pages were far more useful to me.
24
Oh hey, I didn't know free speech granted me solicitation rights, too!
25
The check is in the mail to someone on this decision. A useless phone book that few neither need nor want is free speech? Yeah, somebody's getting paid. If I weren't trying to be environmentally friendly, I'd say we need to gather all those hundreds and thousands of phone books left in lobbies everywhere and have a gigantic bonfire somewhere significant.

This is so funny because I remember the days of needing a phone book and having to call the phone company for one if you didn't have one delivered and sometimes they'd charge you for it.
26
@TVDinner "One of the inalienable rights of property ownership is the right to exclude whomever you want from your property."

Unless you own a public place of accommodation. Then you're subject to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and various other state and federal civil rights laws.
27
@25, like their decisions or not (and the Ninth is the best circuit court in the country), it's silly conspiracy theory to say "somebody's getting paid."
28
Basically they found the Yellow Pages to be noncommerical speech which puts it in the same category as things like newspapers. So that requires the City to take the least restrictive means and have a compelling interest to regulate since they are specifically targeting one type of content.

The reason being that while there is paid ad content there is also things like numbers for social services and government agencies in there plus some other noncommercial shit.

Hardly the end of the world since the phone companies already have an opt out system, though the City's was easier.

@23 Don't even need a lot of money. My stoop is often littered with religious nonsense and glossy flyers from politicians and community groups. I just throw it away and go on with my life.
29
Free speech, pffft. I put a notice with the opt-out number on my building's bulletin board on a regular basis, and management ALWAYS removes the number the same day. Yeah, it's about the money; It's definitely NOT about free speech. BTW, this is in Virginia, where we have the same problem with the yellow pages ("Yellow Book") as you guys. Since everyone has The Google, the huge stack of about 500 phone books sits in the lobby smelling musty for about a month until a garbage someone is specially-hired to take them away. I think not one person takes a book back to their apartment. I know that's not the same as dumping garbage on my porch, but it is interesting that I'm even discouraged from displaying the opt-out number.
30
@26: Yeah, I know. But we're talking about phone books being delivered to residences for the most part, aren't we? If we can exclude that, then the majority of people who are frustrated by this pox can rightfully exclude the phone book delivery person from his or her property.

Although I wouldn't put it past the companies to start shooting these out of cannons from the street, but surely we can make a public safety argument for outlawing cannons on the street.
31
Hey, if corporations are people, does that make Romney a murderer? Or just a grave robber?
32
@31 well, when you own 51 percent of a Chinese corporation, I'd think the former.
33
Since they're not happy with people politely opting-out online, can we safely assume they wouldn't find it objectionable if we decided to just dump our respective copies on their doorstep whenever we please? After all, it's exactly the same behavior, only in reverse.
34
Unsubscribe is unconstitutional?
35
I'd say it's time for the Dex people to leave a bag full of cash on McGinn's doorstep.
36
@6: Would prefer one truck load of yellow pages dumped on the steps of the Court of Appeals, and one at the door of each company delivering them - in the pouring rain, of course.
37
let's round them all and drop them off in the yard here.... Dex One - 3700 Pacific Highway East, Fife, WA
38
"Ultimately, we do not see a principled reason to treat
telephone directories differently from newspapers, magazines,
television programs, radio shows, and similar media that does
not turn on an evaluation of their contents."

The big difference is that people WANT, REQUEST, or CHOOSE to watch newspapers, magazines, television programs and radio shows. Yellow Pages are put on your doorstep uninvited.
39
You know, if the Yellow Pages guys want to stand on the sidewalk in front of my apartment and yell all their phone numbers at me, I can't stop 'em. This is just about them getting to dump litter in my front yard.
40
Silly conspiracy theory? I'm assuming you have read some American history.

By the way, if you can opt out of junk mail, why can't you opt out of essentially a thick, useless catalog of advertisements?
41
I would donate to an organization whose sole purpose was to send large trucks following the phone book delivery guys, picking up every set of books they leave, and dumping them en masse on the doorsteps of the fuckers responsible.
42
Can we just use the phone books as a boycott guide? The companies paying to advertise in those pieces of junk are what is keeping them alive.

Please wait...

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