No More Dex Phone Books! Opt Out Online Starting Today

As you’ve no doubt seen elsewhere, today’s the first day for Seattle’s brand-new phone book opt-out system. Thanks to Catalog Choice, you can prevent piles of phone books from showing up and sitting outside your place of residence for weeks or months, moldering in their own obsolescence. The entire process is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Seattle.gov has their instructions, but I just did it myself, so here’s mine:

1. Go to the Catalog Choice website.
2. Create a profile by entering your name and a password, either via the “sign up” link at the top right, or via the prompt you receive after clicking on Phone Books on the front page. Then enter the address where you don’t want to receive phone books.
3. You’ll get an email to the address provided with the link to active your account. Click on that.
4. Back on the Catalog Choice website, click on the Phone Books tab.
5. The default is to opt-out of all the listed phone books. Keep as is, unless you want to receive a phone book. In that case, indicate how many, and submit the form.

Please note that your opt-out selection must be in effect thirty days before a company starts its Seattle distribution cycle. With that in mind, don’t delay: opt-outs for Dex yellow pages phone books must be made by May 16, 2011 in order to prevent delivery later this year.

And if you opt out in time and still receive yellow pages? Log in to your Catalog Choice account and file a formal complaint. They mean business: “Catalog Choice will track complaints for the City and yellow pages publishers will be held accountable, and even fined, when they fail to honor timely opt-out requests from Seattle residents and businesses.” And that’s exactly why Dex filed an injunction against the opt-out registry earlier today.

You can also eliminate other junk mail by searching for retailers and opting out of their catalogs or mailings via the Catalog Choice site.