Paying to stay out of a phone directory that’s not even printed

AT&T land line phone customers in the “greater Los Angeles” area received copies of the company’s phone book recently. And if they looked closely, they probably noticed something different.

There weren’t any residential listings.

A notice accompanying the directory said that if customers wanted a printed copy of residential listings, they’d have to request it. Otherwise, the notice said, they could just look up phone numbers online.

AT&T isn’t alone in shrinking its phone books — Verizon Communications also has done it. Both companies say the move is in response to changing customer needs in a digital world as well as a desire to be more environmentally friendly.

That may be true. Yet AT&T and Verizon continue charging monthly fees for customers who want to safeguard their privacy with an unlisted number.

Think about that for a moment: A recurring fee to not have your name and number published in a directory that the phone companies aren’t even publishing.

I defy you to come up with a more brazen example of corporate chutzpah.

Georgia Taylor, an AT&T spokeswoman, said that because the company understands “that some customers prefer not to be listed,” it has come up with ways “to accommodate that preference.”

She said that AT&T offers “special handling procedures” and that the fee for being unlisted is a “discretionary charge.”

The company makes it sound as if it’s helping people in wheelchairs make their way up a staircase, and that any associated costs are voluntary.

In reality, AT&T is making customers pay again and again to not receive a service so outdated it already assumes people don’t want it.

Fun fact: The first phone book wasn’t a book but just a single sheet of paper. Published in 1878, it listed the numbers of about four dozen customers living in New Haven, Conn.

As the telephone became a ubiquitous household appliance, so too did the phone book, which once could be found in virtually every home. That changed as cellphones and the Internet changed how people communicate.

With the number of land lines declining at a rate of about 10% a year, and with phone numbers now readily accessible online, the need for residential phone books is rapidly disappearing.

Within the last five years, phone companies nationwide have sought and received permission from state authorities to no longer automatically distribute white pages.

In California, Verizon was the first major player to seek such regulatory approval. The state Public Utilities Commission voted in 2011 to no longer require that Verizon customers receive printed residential listings.

Obviously phone companies save a bundle by not printing directories for every customer. However, not one has offered an estimate as to how much money this represents.

Nor have any phone companies said they’re reducing rates because of the extra cash. Instead, they focus on the estimated 5 million trees that could be preserved each year because of sharply reduced paper needs.

Jarryd Gonzales, a Verizon spokesman, said the company’s “green program” of ending automatic delivery of white pages statewide was completed in October 2012.

“The discontinuation program is expected to keep approximately 1,900 tons of paper per year out of the California waste stream — the equivalent of the maximum takeoff weight of more than four Boeing 747-400 airliners,” Gonzales said.

Meanwhile, the monthly cost of an unlisted number has steadily risen. In January, AT&T raised its fee to $1.75 from $1.25 — a 40% increase.

Next week, Verizon will jack up its fee by an additional 11%, to $2.50 a month from $2.25.

Let’s underline this point. The phone companies make customers pay a privacy-related fee every month even though their privacy preferences do not change.

And with residential listings now completely digital, the cost of being included in — or excluded from — a directory is virtually nonexistent. A few taps on a keyboard and you’re done.

Being unlisted can be helpful if you want to keep your distance from telemarketers. They don’t have access to unpublished numbers, although they still have myriad other ways of finding you thanks to the wide array of public records available.

But why should it cost extra to be left alone? Phone companies are gatekeepers to people’s homes. They have a responsibility to honor and respect customers’ privacy wishes.

Instead, they treat such wishes as a profit center.

Prior to deregulation of California’s phone market in 2006, AT&T charged 28 cents a month for customers to keep their numbers out of the phone book. The company presumably lost no money at that rate, otherwise it would have been within its rights under the law to request a higher fee from state officials.

Since 2006, the company’s charge for an unlisted number has risen 525%.

I asked AT&T’s Taylor why the company needs to charge for an unlisted number on a recurring monthly basis. She declined to answer.

Verizon’s Gonzales defended next week’s rate hike by saying it will “help support the ongoing costs associated with the service.”

Not chopping down trees, apparently, is expensive.

David Lazarus’ column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. he also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.