History
The first telephone directory, consisting of a single piece of cardboard, was issued on 21 February 1878; it listed 50 businesses in New Haven, Connecticut that had a telephone.
The first British telephone directory was published on 15 January 1880 (the year after a public telephone service was introduced into the UK) by The Telephone Company. It contained 248 names and addresses of individuals and businesses in London; telephone numbers were not used at the time as subscribers were asked for by name at the exchange. The directory is preserved as part of the British phone book collection by BT Archives.
The Reuben H. Donnelly company asserts that it published the first classified directory, or yellow pages, for Chicago, Illinois, in 1886.
In 1981 France is the first country to have an Electronic Directory on an Internet system called Minitel. The Directory is called "11" after its telephone access number.
In 1991 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Feist v. Rural) that telephone companies do not have a copyright on telephone listings, because copyright protects creativity and not the mere labor of collecting existing information. Within the geographical reach of the Court, the Feist ruling has resulted in the availability of various telephone directory services on CD-ROM and the World Wide Web.
1994 is the year the first Telephone Directories go online in Australia. Yellowpages.com.au is the fist one soon followed by Whitepages.com.au both operated by the Australian Phone company Telstra
1996 is the year the first Telephone Directories go online in the USA. Yellowpages.com and Whitepages.com, both see their start in April. While Yellowpages.com is now part of AT&T Inc., Whitepages.com is still owned by Alex Algard, its original founder.
1997 is the year the first Telephone Directories go online in the UK. 192.com launches in 1997
In other countries Online Directories start at a little later. In France the first Directory Pageszoom.com, later rebranded as Pagesjaunes.fr goes online in 1997. English Whitepages.fr only arrive in May 2004. In Italy Paginebianche.it start in 1999 – English Whitepages.it only arrive in July 2004.
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