USPS

[tirlasutaa]

I have officially e-mailed the USPS to request an explanation why I should have to pay to buy a CD copy of the address/zip database when a corporation could use this online version free. Should I as a citizen have to fork over $500 when a company that has money pays nothing? My tax dollars are paying for this service too. All I'm asking for is

Comments

[eliset]

You can? I didn't know that - how do they access it, then, that you can't?

[tirlasutaa]

The thing of it is that anyone can access this via
http://www.usps.com/zip4/welcome.htm
however they have a web API that is for software & web applications to access this information & more. (Note that they never give out names, just correct address & give the +4 zip.) They state that software & web applications using this page will be abuse of it & cause them to take it down. So I figured I should be nice & try to use this API. Anyway, I get an e-mail stating that I can't because it's only to be used for shipping, but I can feel free to purchase a $500 cd (every year) or buy a book volume for this area (every year). Since I'm only talking about maybe 10 addresses a day, I could easily just write code to hook into their web page as is without abusing it (I do this manually now anyway). Oh yes, I should prolly mention that in order to access this part of their API one must get a username & password from them.