By Erin Smith/Chronicle staff
Fri Apr 04, 2008, 05:14 PM EDT

Cambridge - If you don’t want a phone book delivered to your doorstep, it may be as easy as picking up your phone.

Last month, City Councilor Sam Seidel proposed the city set up a system that allows citizens to opt out of receiving phone books. He envisioned a city program similar to the National Do Not Call registry, which allows people to remove their phone numbers from telemarketers’ call lists.

But Cantabrigians may already be able to stop delivery on phone books, according to a representative of the Yellow Pages industry.

In January, the Yellow Pages Association and the Association of Directory Publishers adopted environmental guidelines for all directory publishers to adopt opt-out policies, according to Amy P. Healy, director of public policy for the Yellow Pages Association.

“I am pleased to report that all of the publishers you inquired about that deliver in Cambridge… have all signed a statement of commitment to implement the Joint Environmental Guidelines including providing for an opt-out,” said Healy in an e-mail to Seidel.

Seidel said he was pleased with Healy’s e-mail but cautioned that city officials would need to make sure the directory companies’ opt-out system works.

“Then, we’ve got to get the word out because I think a lot of people will be interested,” Seidel told the Chronicle. “But if people don’t know about it, they won’t make use of it.”

Seidel has argued that fewer callers use the Yellow Pages with the advent of online directories.

Officials in the telephone directory industry challenged Seidel’s argument that people no longer use printed editions of the directory citing a study conducted by the Yellow Pages Association that found 87 percent of U.S. adults used yellow page directories in 2007.

Healy e-mailed Seidel that more than 3 million small businesses use Yellow Pages advertising and argued that pushing a directory opt out program would “unfairly target this important segment of Cambridge’s local economy.”
If you don’t want a phone book

Here are the numbers to call if you don’t want to receive phone books in the future.

The Talking Phone Book / White Directory Publishers: 1-800-388-8255 (press 4)

Verizon Yellow Pages / Idearc Media: 1-800-888-8448(press 2)
Yellow Book: 781-238-1025