[Talk-ca] In regards to Canadian Postal Code data on Geocoder.ca (tangentially related)

[Stewart C. Russell]

Looks like Canada Post have dropped the lawsuit against Ervin Ruci. It
still doesn't mean that the PAF is open data yet, but it's significant.

>From https://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 —

    Legal News, May 2016 - In regards to Canadian Postal Code data on
    Geocoder.ca:
    Lawsuit Update
    This is the final update on the status of Canada Post's
    copyright/trademark lawsuit against Geocoder.ca, Ervin Ruci and
    Geolytica.

    Canada Post has discontinued this lawsuit..

    The terms of settlement are confidential but our agreed statement is
    this:

    Canada Post commenced court proceedings in 2012 against Geolytica
    Inc. for copyright infringement in relation to Geolytica Inc.’s
    Canadian Postal Code Geocoded Dataset and related services offered
    on its website at geocoder.ca. The parties have now settled their
    dispute and Canada Post will discontinue the court proceedings. The
    postal codes returned by various geocoder interface APIs and
    downloadable on geocoder.ca, are estimated via a crowdsourcing
    process. They are not licensed by geocoder.ca from Canada Post, the
    entity responsible for assigning postal codes to street addresses.
    Geolytica continues to offer its products and services, using the
    postal code data it has collected via a crowdsourcing process which
    it created.

    While it is unfortunate that it took Canada Post 4 years to come to
    this conclusion, this turn of events reinforces our long held
    position that our postal code data is crowd sourced.

    PS. All excess donations and/or other funds we have received at the
    conclusion of this lawsuit, will be donated to those who conducted
    our legal defense pro bono over the past four years of legal
    wrangling, with special thanks to the Canadian Internet Policy and
    Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) and RIDOUT & MAYBEE LLP.

cheers,
 Stewart

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