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However, is that information accurate? Do people write the truth about themselves on social media and similar websites? The answer is of course NO. By typing in the name of a person into a search engine or a social media website, people can find photos, the marital status, the employment status, and other information about people. With millions of people on social media websites, it seems that people can find information about others in no time at all. If you don't want to wait that long, you can contact Sensis to opt out of receiving the phone book.Is White Pages Legit? Or is White Pages a Scam? We Review ! The company says it expects the Yellow and White Pages have "eight years or so" of life left in them. "We take our environmental and sustainability obligations very seriously … We ensure that every single phone book of ours is carbon-neutral," Ms Hay said. "They aren't being very efficient because their model is overproducing supply to demand, and it's in their interest to do that because they're not wearing the cost of production at this stage," he said.īut the company says it's committed to minimising its impact on the environment. What about the waste?ĭr Buttriss says while Sensis is a carbon-neutral publisher that works with several sustainability groups, their distribution model is inherently wasteful. Ms Hay also noted the number of non-profit groups that fundraised by distributing the books. "Those people who are more vulnerable, who don't have access to the internet, whether that's through age demographics or their socio-economic circumstances, are going to be marginalised."
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"Why don't we offer it as an opt-in only? There's a couple of reasons there. "We are able to tailor into a distribution map, which enables us to say that in that particular street … they are going to be more likely to use the internet and therefore we won't deliver the phone book to them," Ms Hay said. The model is starting to change though, and in recent years the company has begun ceasing delivery to high-density areas where usage is expected to be lowest. "I think they've got their model designed that way because it inflates their 'subscribers', if that's the right word." "I see it as a business model that is gradually dying and they're trying to extract as much value out of it as they can," he said. Yet data suggests just 36 per cent of Australians have used a phone book in the past 12 months, many of those being concentrated in regional Australia where internet connections are more temperamental.Īcademic Gary Buttriss, who studies how businesses adapt to more sustainable processes, says the company relies on selling advertising space, and the greater their reach, the more valuable the ad space. Sensis continues to employ an opt-out model for its phone books, and less than five per cent of Australian households have chosen to stop their annual delivery. So why do most of us still receive the phone book, regardless of how often we use it? Why opt-in when you can opt-out? "There's no doubt that within the metropolitan areas the internet has become the main means by which we conduct our search." "Yes, we know that usage is in decline, and I won't hide from that," director of corporate affairs Libby Hay said. Twelve years later, Sensis acknowledges the phone book is no longer top dog when it comes to search directories.
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The Yellow Pages was once so ubiquitous Telstra boss Sol Trujillo, whose company owned publisher Sensis at the time, uttered the infamous phrase "Google schmoogle" when asked about the threat the search engine posed to the business. So how has the humble phone book survived the internet boom? And why are you still sent a directory that may well go straight in the bin? 'Google schmoogle'
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Yet already this year hundreds of thousands of books have been rolled out across the country, and the company behind the directory and its cousin the White Pages says it isn't going anywhere soon. There was a time when the Yellow Pages phone book was Australia's go-to place to find businesses, addresses and phone numbers.
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