[happyopossum]

> pre internet, your name, address, and phone number would published in the widely distributed telephone book

Not sure where you’re from, but at least in the countries where I’ve lived (Canada and the US) your address was not in the phone book. It was a book of phone numbers - nothing more.

[drfuchs]

Yes, in the US, Bell Telephone White Pages absolutely showed your house address by default. How else would you know which John A. Smith was the one you were trying to look up? By the 1980's I recall being able to pay to remove your address from your listing (or pay even more to remove your listing entirely, as noted elsewhere). The excuse that Bell Telephone gave, by the way, for charging these fees is that you were decreasing the net worth of the network by not being listed.

See, for instance, https://www.loc.gov/resource/usteledirec.usteledirec08135/?s... (with bonus lovely exchange names!)

[tivert]

> Not sure where you’re from, but at least in the countries where I’ve lived (Canada and the US) your address was not in the phone book. It was a book of phone numbers - nothing more.

I'm pretty sure addresses were listed US West (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_West) telephone book White Pages.

[joelwilliamson]

I grew up in Ontario in the 90s, and addresses were in the phonebook.