A new No.10 petition: free PostZon
Mark Goodge added this as a comment to the data.gov.uk post, but it seems worth making more visible. So here it is:
“While the launch of data.gov.uk is a big step in the right direction, the government’s response to the petition inspired by the forced closure of ernestmarples.com has been pathetic. As a consequence, I’ve created a new petition which seeks to focus more tightly on the Postzon data (the data use by ernestmarples in their API). This can be found at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/geopostcode/.”
That’s one that’s definitely worth getting behind. Head over there and …do whatever the verb is for petitioning someone. Is it petition?
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Free our address data - or at least get them to stop charging each other: the petition (13 March 2007; score: 43.1%)
- Costing ernestmarples (and free data) vs paid-for (11 October 2009; score: 34.46%)
- Postcodes: local authorities vs Royal Mail still arguing; want to sign a petition? (24 May 2007; score: 29.25%)
- Postcodes to be free? But which ones? (9 December 2009; score: 12.66%)
- Data.gov.uk: now that's what we call a result (25 January 2010; score: 10.79%)
January 29th, 2010 at 12:32 am
I challenge you to find a petition on that site that has had any effect. 99% of them are:
1. Based on knowledge gleaned from the Daily Mail, e.g. the ‘MegaMosque’ one.
2. Petitioning something that will/won’t happen anyway, e.g. Red Arrows funding, vehicle tracking road tax.
3. Idiotic e.g. cut tax on smoothies.
4. A good idea, but ignored.
Actually I did find one that appears to have succeeded: Stopping the use of non-geographic numbers by the NHS. There’s no counter argument to that though, and there is for the postzon file.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:40 am
I agree that most petitions are entirely useless. But at least part of the aim of this one is to force the government to address the real question posed by ernestmarples.com. We’ve previously had news reports that the government is planning to release at least some postcode data (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8402327.stm), but, if so, why not say so in response to the previous petition? I get a strong feeling that different factions within the government are in conflict over this, and the press release announcing a possible release of the data may well now be losing the internal battle. Provided we can get enough signatures on this petition, we can at least force them to address the issue – are they going to stick with the previously announced plans, or change their minds and maintain the status quo?