From rhoskins@home.com Mon Jun 21 16:01:36 1999 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id QAA15154 for ; Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:01:35 -0700 Received: from ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com (siteadm@ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com [24.0.2.66]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.06) with ESMTP id QAA20918 for ; Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:01:34 -0700 Received: from c501552a ([24.5.121.123]) by ha1.rdc1.wa.home.com (Netscape Mail Server v2.02) with SMTP id AAA4575 for ; Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:01:32 -0700 Message-ID: <012401bebc39$fe3cae60$7b790518@olmpi1.wa.home.com> From: "Richard E. Hoskins" To: References: <3.0.6.32.19990621152044.03da9920@direct.ca> Subject: Re: Free Zipcodes? Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:01:27 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Glenn: Other than Florida is warmer, don't expect all that greener pastures with respect to these issues. The presence and the implementation of the "Freedom of Information Act" still remains at a formidable distance, one from the other. We promise a completely new set of challenges ... among them that Florida seems to be on fire a lot lately. Dick Hoskins ----- Original Message ----- From: G. Letham To: Sent: Monday, June 21, 1999 3:20 PM Subject: Re: Free Zipcodes? > Does that ever sound familiar... Confidential information! > > For some reason ALL levels of government here in Canada seem to think that > they are not only the custodians but the owners of thed data and that for > some strange reason public data such as postal codes are "confidential" - > only in Canada eh! > > I'm looking forward to my upcomming move to Florida. > Glenn > > > At 09:58 PM 6/19/99 -0400, you wrote: > > > > > >Actually, Canada's Postal Codes change quite often as well - we need updates > >every 6 months. and they cost much more then $295.00 US - we are looking at > >about $200.00 per update - assuming that we update every 6 months. If we > lapse > >a period - we pay full price $800.00 and that is just points - no boundaries. > >We only have boundaries for the first 3 digits of our postal codes eg. > K1A 0L2 > >- we only have boundaries for K1A. The rest of the postal code boundary > files > >that Canada Post has - have indicated that they are confidential > information - > >for some reason.... > > > >MARK > > > > > > > > > > > > > >"Peter H. Van Demark" on 18/06/99 01:15:53 PM > > > >Please respond to waphgis@u.washington.edu > > > >To: waphgis@u.washington.edu > >cc: (bcc: Mark Vanderkloot) > > > >Subject: Re: Free Zipcodes? > > > > > > > > > >Richard: > > > >>Where can one find free Zipcodes? Yes ... really! My shop spends quite a > >lot every > >>year to get the latest Zipcode boundaries from the usual suspects. And > >then we can't > >>give them to anyone without spending a whole lot more. Why should we have > >to do that? > >>The USPS must have them ... right? Certainly the Zipcodes are public > >property. Any > >>ideas? > > > >Wrong. ZIP Codes are not areas, they are lists of addresses. The USPS does > >not create ZIP Code boundaries, but companies like Geographic Data > >Technology do. It is not easy, and they charge for it. We sell current ZIP > >Code boundaries created from the quarterly GDT data, and a big portion of > >our price ($295 for the whole U.S., boundaries and points) is a license fee > >to GDT. If you get "free" ZIP Code boundaries, they are most likely > > > >1) older boundaries (we bundle April 1990 boundaries with our products to > >go with the 1990 census data) > > > >2) a violation of a license agreement > > > >I've been a student of postal codes for longer than I'll admit, and I wish > >that USPS saw ZIP Codes as semi-permanent areas, as in Canada, UK, etc., so > >they could publish them affordably and we could base research (especially > >longitudinal research) on them. But they don't. Sorry. > > > >Peter > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------- > >Peter Van Demark > >Manager of Customer Services Phone: 617-527-4700 > >Caliper Corporation Fax: 617-527-5113 > >1172 Beacon Street E-mail: peter@caliper.com > >Newton MA 02461-9926 Web site: http://www.caliper.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > .