8 ms·

The issue here is that their quote is in government-speak that not everyone can understand. Translated into plain English: "proprietary business information" m

• adestefan 13y ago
  The USPS isn't a government department.
  • toomuchtodo 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service "The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office and U.S. Mail, is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution." If the US constitution is how you're created, you're given a monopoly on delivering mail in the US, and you're governed by Congress, you're part of the US government.
    • adestefan 13y ago
      Would you define the Federal Reserve as part of the government?
      • toomuchtodo 13y ago
        Yes. http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the Congress of the United States. It is considered an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by the Congress, which often reviews the Federal Reserve's activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government" rather than "independent of government."
        • 001sky 13y ago
          The better question is, are the employees of the Fed under the employ of the US government. Nationally chartered commercial banks are required to hold stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of their region; this entitles them to elect some of the members of the board of the regional Federal Reserve Bank. Thus the Federal Reserve system has both public and private aspects.[18][19][20][21] The U.S. Government receives all of the system's annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid, and an account surplus is maintained.
      • mdrn 13y ago
        Yes, they are part of the fourth branch [0]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government
    • timr 13y ago
      You're being pedantic. Since the 1970s, the USPS is supposed to be revenue-neutral, by law. This is a direct rebuttal to the simplistic "I already done paid for it with meh tax dollers!" argument that appears to be carrying the day in this discussion. The past history and current management structure of the postal service is completely irrelevant to the debate. The only tax subsidy the USPS receives is to fund things like free mail for the blind, election mail, and other "public good" services. They charge for the zip code database because it's a product that can make them revenue (which they desperately need), and it is, in fact, a proprietary invention of the USPS.
      • toomuchtodo 13y ago
        You're being disingenous. Congress maintains not only their monopoly on first-class mail delivery, but also control over key financial decisions. I don't see a lot of private companies that provide Congress with authority over themselves
        • deleted 13y ago
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        • AsymetricCom 13y ago
          So, what's the problem with that, exactly?
          • toomuchtodo 13y ago
            It's not a problem. The argument is that if they're part of the US government, they're required to release the information requested under the Freedom Of Information Act. USPS is trying to make the case that they're a private business not connected to the US government (and hence, aren't required to comply with the FOIA), which clearly is not true.
            • AsymetricCom 13y ago
              It doesn't seem that clear to me. Especially considering the tax part. I'm thinking there's probably stuff the USPS knows that really shouldn't be public information.
    • wwweston 13y ago
      It's a US government institution, sure. Arguing about that (or focusing on it) misses the real point about how they're different from a lot of government agencies, which has everything to do with why they're acting grabby about IP like a business. As the Wikipedia article notes, since 1971 it's been a corporation-like independent agency that's essentially unsupported by taxes. Since then it was supposed to operate in the black and it did for a long time, until it got hit by increased competition in traditional delivery services, digital communications... and the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (which both keeps it from offering new "non-postal" services and gives it new obligations like prefunding healthcare obligations 75 years into the future). I don't think treating zip or other geoinfo they've got as proprietary is a great idea, because it could be used to create a lot of value if it was let out on its own. But the value it has makes it a potential revenue source, and given the obligations and limited options they have, I can understand why they feel like they'd have to capture some of the value they've created.
      • dogweather 13y ago
        Author of the blog post here. I completely agree with you; this is my best estimate of the situation as well.
    • baddox 13y ago
      I'm not a constitutional scholar, whatever that even means, but I've always wondered why the authority "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads" is interpreted as the authority to forcefully implement a monopoly on postal service (now, just a near-monopoly on first-class mail).
      • dragonwriter 13y ago
        > I've always wondered why the authority "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads" is interpreted as the authority to forcefully implement a monopoly on postal service Generally, all the powers in Art. I, Section 8 ("To raise armies", "To provide and maintain a navy", "To borrow money on the credit of the United States") are read that way, though the only one that has express exclusion language is the power to legislate over the national capital district.
        • baddox 13y ago
          Can no one else raise an army or navy? I suppose it depends on your definition of "army" and "navy." Borrowing money on the credit of the US seems like a pretty obvious intrinsic monopoly.
  • biturd 13y ago
    Which makes sense to me, or at least those do not ever enforce this patent on infringers… I have had to do zip code to location lookups to find ( I think it's called the Great Circle Calculation ) "within x miles of $zip_code". I found plenty of companies wiling to sell me the data, sell me updated data quarterly, or API that after testing did not have data change in over a month, though from what I know about zip codes, and for our application, missing a zip code was not the end of the world, I just picked another close one. When drawing a radius around a point, if the point is missing but with so many zip codes, there was aways one close by. 1) How can they sell this? They don't apparently own it. 2) Why not use ones of the many zip, lat, long, databases that I seem to remember being pretty easy to find? There's some logic behind the zip codes and how they are dished out. Unlike IP that has BGP to find the best route from IP to IP, USPS has none of this, so i imagine this was like trying to solve that "Traveling salesman" quandary with constantly changing and unknown locations. They had to make a sort of zip code prefix that at least gets them to the county level. Lot's of good data here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code This is like how telco's issues numbers, it was all well thought out ahead of time. You could get kinda dirty and run a loop from zip_code_1 to zip_code_1+1 with each one polling the USPS for a zip code lookup. You would have a pretty accurate database. At one "scrape" of data taking 5 seconds, in a month you would have your data. After that you would only have to test the gaps between numbers to see if new ones were added or just follow some usps page to keep up on new and deprecated zip codes. There are too many sites that use geolocation with zip to not have this be a solved problem on the very cheap. Probably just another API, where in the future apps will just be lego like API's you copy and paste JS snippets to and from. :)
• _delirium 13y ago
  The USPS used to be a clear-cut government agency, but has been quasi-privatized. Congress cut its taxpayer funding, and directed it to run itself like a business, not like a public service. Accordingly, you are incorrect about who are the "people paying their salaries": the USPS has not received any taxpayer money since its funding was cut to zero in the early 1980s. It now funds itself like a business, by charging fees and, like any other business, exploiting intellectual property where the opportunity arises. In that sense it's more like a regulated utility, like Comcast or PG&E, having been privatized in all but name. Ultimately whether it's a public service that should act in the public interest, or an organization that should be run as a business, is a policy decision that's up to Congress to decide. And Congress decided on the 2nd. Given that, exploiting the zipcode database as proprietary IP seems in line with the letter and the spirit of their (current) mandate.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > the USPS has not received any taxpayer money since its funding was cut to zero in the early 1980s. Not quite true, its received public funding since then, but that's specifically tied to costs associated with, IIRC, overseas absentee ballots.
    • dsl 13y ago
      Yes, but that is payment for work done. At best, they are a government contractor.
      • dragonwriter 13y ago
        They are, in fact, a government agency. Government agencies that are funded entirely through user fees -- which is what postage is -- aren't entirely uncommon. (Of course, given the way that it is funded in part by "loans" from the Treasury that are made without any indication that the Postal Service will ever have a business plan that enables them to be repaid, its kind of questionable to even put the Postal Service in the category of purely user-fee funded government agencies. Its really just a plain old regular tax-and-user-fee-funded government that has been cloaked in some misleading smoke-and-mirrors.)
• bunderbunder 13y ago
  Assuming by "the people paying their salaries" you mean "taxpayers", then you're incorrectly assuming that USPS is paid for by taxpayers. It isn't - it's got to pay its own way by selling goods and services. In that respect it's a lot more like a business. So your translation of "proprietary business information" is erroneous. A more accurate one would be, "Shit we ain't giving away for free. This ain't no charity, bub."
  • mh- 13y ago
    USPS has maintained a substantial deficit for some time. It is, therefore, subsidized by taxpayers. The USPS lost US$ 15.9 billion in 2012, and its revenue was US$ 65.2 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
    • deleted 13y ago
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    • ubernostrum 13y ago
      And this leads down the rabbit hole into the argument about Congress forcing USPS to advance-fund its pensions in a way no other government agency is required to, and which many argue is A) the source of practically all of the deficit, and B) was a deliberate move by members of Congress who wanted the USPS to become money-losing so as to make a stronger case for privatizing it.
      • jrochkind1 13y ago
        Which, when you think about it, makes no sense at all. If running a postal service that reaches all of the country is a money losing proposition, that's a terrible reason to privatize it, if you think it's in the national benefit to have a postal service.
        • dsl 13y ago
          FedEx and UPS put lots of money behind forcing the USPS to pre-fund union pensions. The goal was to both weaken the postal service, which was trying to move into "fast" shipments (1-2 day vs. the usual week+), and demonstrate that unions were bad for businesses in the delivery industry.
• 8ig8 13y ago
  Playing devil's advocate... By the same measure, should we not be outraged by having to pay postage? Wouldn't the postal employees that created the Zipcode database be the same class of postal employee that deliver the mail?
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