We license the business listings that appear in our directories directly from local telephone companies and other providers and print those listings as they are provided to us.  If we receive aspecific complaint about a listing, we definitely look into it and do our best to address the complaint.  We may also consult with the local telephone company that provided the listing.  For example, if we get a call from a consumer claiming a locksmith is using the consumer’s residential address in a business listing, we typically get in touch with the local telephone company providing the business listing and, where appropriate, remove that listing.

The guidelines for ads are a bit different.  Although we have very strict guidelines on the type of content that appears in directory advertising at times our clients provide us with information that results in inaccurate ad copy.  While we can’t police all of the ads we publish, if someone brings an inaccurate ad to our attention, we look into it and make, or require our clients to make, the necessary changes.

The bottom line is that, once we are made aware of any problems, we endeavor to address them.  If it is a problem with listings, we typically work with the local telephone company.  If has something to do with an ad, we fix it ourselves after appropriate consultation with our clients.

We have very specific guidelines in place that are designed to address the sensibilities of the communities we serve.  We want to make sure that our products are well-received in our communities, so there are some businesses that are legal but for which we do not accept advertising orders.  For example, we don’t accept ads from brothels, which can operate legally in portions of Nevada.  Our guidelines are not so much driven by legal considerations as they are by our desire to be responsive to the sensibilities of consumers and the communities in which we do business.

Even with the guidelines we have in place, there are going to be ads that are subjectively offensive to certain individuals or organizations.  We do our best to look at each one on a case-by-case basis to ensure that a particular ad does not offend the legitimate sensibilities of the clients, communities, and consumers that we serve.  As a private enterprise we have the right to reject offensive advertising to maintain the marketability of our products and services.  It’s just good business to tailor our publications to our markets and maintain a sense of responsibility to our clients, consumers and communities. 

Regarding marijuana dispensaries -- although some states consider these legal businesses, we currently do not allow marijuana dispensaries to advertise in our directories.  The regulation of marijuana dispensaries currently is ambiguous in the states that allow medical marijuana use.  Furthermore, medical marijuana use arguably is illegal under Federal law, although a rather vague moratorium on the enforcement of these laws has been announced by the US Department of Justice.  We are open to reviewing our policy and approach toward allowing marijuana dispensaries to advertise in our directories depending on further legal developments and general industry practices.  Right now the major publishers are, by and large, not running these types of ads.  If that practice begins to change and the laws surrounding dispensaries become clearer, we may at some point reconsider our current practice.

We generally encourage our clients to contact our Customer Care center directly if they have any concerns about their ads.  Customer Care is the front line for most advertiser-focused concerns, and the folks there are great.  In fact, we think Dex One has the best Customer Care organization in our industry! They typically take a number of steps in response to client concerns, including investigating the client’s advertising order and related documentation, talking to the client’s sales rep, and, of course, to the clients themselves.  After that, customer care works hard to address any outstanding concerns. 

We have hundreds of thousands of clients.  With the huge volume of work we do, some mistakes unfortunately do happen – but we do our best to minimize them.  Given the sheer number of local businesses we work with, we have a relatively small number of complaints in the overall scheme of things.  Of course, when something does arise, it’s very important to us and our clients that we resolve the issue quickly, and we work hard to do that.  With our online products like DexKnows we usually can rectify errors in real-time.  And while corrections can be a greater challenge with our print telephone directory products once distributed, we do our best to work with the advertiser to try to make things right.

Again, I can’t say enough about our colleagues in Customer Care.  They do a great job.

We’re very concerned about proposed legislation that would limit our ability to distribute our print telephone directories and are working diligently to lobby for industry self-regulation.  This means Dex One and other directory publishers will have the opportunity to voluntarily offer consumers the ability to customize their directory deliveries.  This is something we already offer through our Select Your Dex program, which was the first of its kind in our industry.  We feel Select Your Dex positions us as a leader in consumer choice.  We strongly feel we have the best site for customizing delivery orders and the best system and controls in place to ensure that our products don’t get delivered to consumers who don’t want to receive them.  And Select Your Dex has been very successful for us; many consumers have actually asked for more directories rather than opting out from our directory deliveries.  So we have a lot to be proud of.

The yellow pages provide a significant economic benefit to a number of different groups.  When you look at our business clients, yellow pages advertising is very effective for them.  And our research confirms the effectiveness and value of our products and services.  The economic benefit goes beyond our clients.  It impacts our communities positively by directly providing jobs and other economic benefits.  Our business also positively impacts other companies with which we do business, such as our paper suppliers, our printing vendors and our delivery vendors.  Those companies in turn provide jobs and other economic benefits to the communities we serve.

There’s still a lot of work to be done, though.  That’s why we continue to be actively engaged in an effort to combat what we feel is unnecessary legislation. We're taking part in this effort with the Yellow Pages Association, other telephone directory publishers, and other interested parties, such as direct mail and newspaper publishers. 

At the end of the day, though, it’s hard for me to conceive of anything I’d be more proud of doing than what I’m doing right now, which is helping local businesses succeed and grow and having the privilege of working with so many wonderful people here at Dex One.