It’s kinda funny how times change.

In Germany, it even used to be that your phone number, along with your name and address, was published in the phone book, by law. If you wanted to be delisted, you had to provide a valid reason, such as being stalked. Just because was not good enough. At every street corner was a phone booth with the phone book of your town with your name and address. At post offices, you could find phone books from other towns. (The phone system was run by the postal service, which was a government agency.)

Phone books were a bit of a plot point in Terminator. The terminator gets the list of Connors from the phone book and kills them in that order.