Category: Corporate Power

Phonebook Lawsuit Cost Seattle $264,503 in Legal Fees

Update: Seattle Weekly reports that the city has announced a $517,500 settlement with the phonebook companies. The total cost of the settlement and legal fees to the city therefore is $781,503. City says phonebook opt-out service will be taken offline soon....

/ March 1, 2013

Why You Should Care About Seattle’s Phonebook Debacle

Update: In response to my public records request, the City of Seattle reports it has paid $264,503 in outside legal fees during the Yellow Pages Lawsuit. Reading through the comments on BoingBoing about Seattle’s proposed $500,000 settlement with phonebook companies highlighted for me how misunderstood...

/ February 26, 2013

Corporate Personhood to Cost Seattle $500,000 to Settle Phone Book Lawsuit

Update 2: There is now a followup: Why you should care about Seattle’s phonebook debacle? Update: This post did not include an estimate for the city’s own legal fees. The city retained Summit Law Group as outside counsel on the case which...

/ February 21, 2013

Good Activism Breaks Law

Update: The Stranger published a shorter version of this on August  15. Last week, The Stranger called Initiative 103 “an unconstitutional waste of time,” but constitutionality isn’t the right benchmark to measure social change efforts. In 1873, after suffragist Susan...

/ August 5, 2012

How Phonebook Companies Are Wasting Seattle Taxpayers’ Money

Thud… Thud… Thud! That’s the sound of phonebooks you opted out from landing on your porch in the near future if Seattle loses a lawsuit brought by phonebook publishers. The case is a perfect example of big business using “corporate personhood”...

/ July 11, 2012

Why a Free and Open Internet Matters in Seattle

Effective July 1st, Qwest and Comcast subscribers will have to pay an additional fee to stream Netflix movies and they will no longer be able to make calls with Skype. Actually, we’re making that up, but that’s what could happen...

/ June 11, 2012

Initiative 103 Provides Tools Seattle Needs to Protect Our Community

    Issue after issue in Seattle pits corporate power and influence peddling against residents and our environment. Initiative 103’s Community Bill of Rights provides the tools residents need to protect and manage what happens in our city.     Take a...

/ May 12, 2012