Consumers turning to free online service as directory assistance rates rapidly rise

SEATTLE—April 1, 2005

WhitePages.com, Inc., a leading provider of online directory assistance services, today announced its service is saving consumers billions in directory assistance charges as landline directory assistance fees continue to escalate. According to The Pierz Group, national landline directory assistance rates are expected to continue to increase each year. This is especially true for 2005. Verizon has recently received regulatory approvals to raise its rates and eliminate free DA calls in much of its service area. These price increases are as much as 400 percent.

"While this number looks huge, it only brings Verizon into line with pricing by other carriers around the country," said Kathleen Pierz, managing partner at The Pierz Group. "Consumers currently pay an average $1.10 per 411 call on their home or office phones. The Verizon increases, when implemented, will drive this average higher."

Using WhitePages.com, consumers can quickly perform people, business, reverse phone, reverse address, area code and ZIP code searches - all for free. WhitePages.com updates its directory assistance information every 30 days, providing consumers with the most up-to-date contact information available for free online. With traditional 411 directory assistance calls costing between $1.10 and $3.49 per look-up,* consumers are increasingly turning to free online resources, like WhitePages.com to find and manage contact information.

"With landline directory assistance fees increasing, consumers are finding alternate ways to quickly find contact information," said Pierz. "Using services such as WhitePages.com, consumers have free contact information at their fingertips. With the steady rise in directory assistance fees, I expect that WhitePages.com will continue to experience strong growth in the coming months."

"Using WhitePages.com, consumers have saved billions in directory assistance fees," said Max Bardon, president and CEO of WhitePages.com, Inc. "WhitePages.com provides a fast, easy and free way for consumers to look up contact information and avoid escalating directory assistance charges that continue to drain their pocketbooks."

*The Pierz Group

About WhitePages.com
WhitePages.com, a privately held company based in Seattle, is the most trusted and comprehensive source for consumers to quickly and easily find relevant, accurate contact information in North America. The company's network of sites include WhitePages.com (www.whitepages.com), WhitePages.ca (www.whitepages.ca), 411.com (www.411.com), Address.com (www.address.com), PhoneNumber.com (www.phonenumber.com), and its 1,300 partner sites including Superpages.com, YellowPages.com and Canada411. The on-the-go user can also access contact information via cell phone, Blackberrys and other web-enabled mobile devices.

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Tiffany West
WhitePages.com


Jill Reed
Schwartz Communications
415.512.0770