Re: usps.gov

[Carl Malamud <xxxx@media.org>]

i went down this slope with Robert Cook at Metaweb, who wanted the  
same data.

The bad news is this is not nearly as clearcut as most things just  
because USPS really is not (necessarily) the government.  They are  
like Amtrak.

The most straightforward way to ahndle this stuff was to become one of  
their information retailers, but that was a fairly elaborate process.

You might want to touch base with Robert and see if he has made any  
progress here ... I'm not averse to doing this, but the copyright  
issues are much less clear here, so I'd want to be pretty careful.

On Jul 2, 2008, at 12:14 PM, Aaron Swartz wrote:

> So one of the things we want to do on Watchdog is let people enter
> their zip code and find out information about their neighborhood. But,
> outrageously, the USPS's database about which zip codes are where
> isn't available publicly. It's another one of these absurd government
> mail-away-for-the-DVD things. (Did they all get some memo on this or
> something?) Anyway, it looks like a couple thousand dollars for the
> important databases. You interested? I can PayPal the money if
> necessary.
>
> http://www.usps.com/ncsc/
> http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressinfo/addressinfomenu.htm
> Manual on ordering: http://ribbs.usps.gov/files/Addressing/PUBS/ 
> AIS.pdf
>
> The important things seem to be:
>
> - Five-Digit ZIP ($500; lists the streets for each zip code)
> - ZIP+4 ($900; lists the addresses for each ZIP+4 code)
> - City State (free with the above; maps to city and state names)
> - TIGER/ZIP+4 ($700; lets you map the zip codes with Census data)
>
> Delivery Statistics ($350; lists the number of deliveries to each zip
> code) also looks kind of interesting.