Serious question. Before social media and everybody’s info becoming readily available online, how did phonebooks get their info? How do they do it now?
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When you signed up for telephone service, you had the option to have a listed number or unlisted number. A listed number means you gave the phone company permission to publish your name, phone number, and address. Most people opted for a listed phone number so that others could get in contact with them. Then a company like Yellow Pages would compile those numbers in a given region into telephone books that would be delivered to the house of everyone who had a listed number.
You also had less to worry about having that info out in the open because the analog systems of the time made identity theft much more difficult…
Fun fact: Most of the telephone companies owned their own directory (phone book) division. Back in the mid 1980’s they were broken up by the court due to monopoly. Well here we are in 2020 and I work for the largest company that still produces phone books and also print for other smaller telcos. All three that were split up are back under one ownership again. Except yellow pages is a dying business. Has been for the 19 years I have been working here. YP advertising still makes money but the invent of smartphones and google searching. It’s not the powerhouse of advertising it once was. Boomers and anyone around 45 years old or older remember phone books Whitepages for residential name phone number lookups and yellowpages is paid advertising, local pizza, plumbers, lawyers, etc… Also there are smaller non telco yellow
page companies out there.
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