Free the postcode!

Post­codes are an essen­tial part of loc­a­tion ser­vices in the UK. How­ever, they’re not free – they are owned by the Post Office, who will charge you a hefty sum in order to get access to the database.

Ham­per­ing free and innov­at­ive location-based ser­vices? Likely. Easy to reverse-engineer? You betcha!

The Free the Post­code pro­ject intends to build a pub­lic domain data­base of post­codes, in the same way that the Open Street Map pro­ject intends to build a free map of all streets in the UK, thus break­ing the Ordin­ance Survey’s hold on that information.

How­ever, if you have an iPhone, Free the Post­code has a free applic­a­tion that uses the phone’s GPS for loc­a­tion, com­bined with your sub­mis­sion of the post­code. This link will open it in iTunes. There’s also an app for Android phones.

This is an excel­lent idea and well worth supporting.

Found on Tech­Crunch UK