Going Postal™

Despite that Canada Post® has been complaining of loosing money and loosing ground to e-communications for years now, they have decided to launch a lawsuit that I see no way they could possibly win. They allege that they are the copyright owner of postal codes...

???

Huh???

Does this mean I need to pay a licensing fee when I write "K1A 0B1" the postal code of Canada Post's Headquarters? 7¢ please. What about my own? "H0H0H0" (maybe I am Santa, you cannot prove otherwise... And do you really feel like risking ending up on the naughty list if I am?). 7¢ please. No, that isn't the way it works... So I don't understand what they hope to accomplish other than to waste money and the judicial system's time.

Why do dying business models feel then need to lash out at the world with lawsuits rather than re-think their strategy and maybe re-invent themselves? In this case, it's even worse. Think about the who Canada Post is. Canada Post is a crown corporation which means that it is owned by the government of Canada, if it is owned by the Canadian government then that makes me and every other Canadian a stakeholder... So I will get a legal bill for this frivolity after they have lost. Of course it will remain hidden in my taxes so I will not feel directly or immediately. 

I am aware that Canada Post offers the very same freely available search for a postal code database on their website, but have you ever tried to look something up using it? Quebec addresses take 17 attempts to actually find an address because they've sheepishly avoided allowing 'RUE' to be considered equal to 'STREET' for many years, though I should credit them as this seems to have been fixed since the last time I attempted to look up a postal code. Maybe they did not want to step on any 'orteils', and get some separatists 'nez' out of joint at the time, maybe it was a work in progress and I was too quick to call foul on it but I remember many years of saying to myself 'forget this!' then consulting the online phone book instead...

Strangely, they did not sue the yellow pages for the availability of postal codes. I guess it's easier to attack a crowd-sourcing start-up company than the phone companies...

Actually, I am sure it's easier, otherwise the phone companies would have stopped gouging us decades ago when the telecoms market was supposedly deregulated to allow 4 or 5 companies to collude on gouging us, instead of a single monopolistic one. Because, you know how capitalism and competition were taught to you, and how that drives prices into line with consumer interests. Bah! Humbug! But again I am steering off-course as I so often do after drinking an entire pot of coffee in an hour-and-a-half.

In the end, I suppose this will be chalked up with all my other rants. Nobody important will hear it, and if they actually did, they will not hear any logic in it. This construct of a world denies the existence of logic in favour of a more controllable emotionally induced comatose state of status quo.

-DIrtyKID©