Hello Page was NTT's personal name telephone directory with a white cover, listing subscribers' names, numbers, and addresses alphabetically. It paired with the yellow "Town Page" (business directory by industry).
Dating back to Japan's 1890 telephone launch, Hello Page listed about 60 million personal entries at its peak, delivered free to every household. It was an essential daily tool for finding phone numbers and checking neighborhood residents.
Rising privacy awareness caused opt-out rates to surge. The directory was exploited as a targeting list for phone scams and telemarketing, with elderly victims particularly affected. Listing rates dropped from 80% to under 10%. NTT announced discontinuation in 2021, with the final edition in October 2023 ending approximately 130 years of history.
The discontinuation symbolizes the privacy-convenience tradeoff. While one reverse lookup method disappeared, so did the mass personal data exposure risk. Number lookups have shifted to NTT's "104" directory assistance (66 yen per query) and online number search services.