There has been an interesting case in the news recently about Canada Post asserting its intellectual property rights over postal codes. You may have read [1][2][3] that Canada Post is suing an Ottawa-based company called Geolytica, which operates the website GeoCoder.ca. At issue is whether anyone has the right to sell or give away lists […]
Invalid Excluded Address Transition Period
On November 2, 2011, Canada Post announced changes to the transition period for invalid excluded addresses. Background In January 2011, Canada Post introduced Point of Call reference data (“PoCAD”) for use in generating Statement of Accuracy reports. An important feature of the PoCAD data is that it includes much more granular information, in particular, unit […]
What Should You Do With A Declared Valid Address
In general, an address that is valid (status=”V”) according to nCode is one which already has all of the important address elements. This means nothing important is missing or incorrect. A valid address might need some standardization to fix superficial issues like abbreviating keywords or removing punctuation, but the address elements themselves are complete and correct. A […]
Point Of Call Reference Data
Point Of Call Canada Post publishes data that lists the official valid mailing addresses in Canada. The most recent version of this data is referred to as “Point of Call”. What is Point of Call data and what does it mean for your organization? Read on to find out… Two Views Of Address Reference Data Prior to January […]
Does Canada Post Provide Competitive Comparisons On Their SERP list?
In the past, Canada Post provided a three-tier rating system (A, B, C) for products on their SERP list. For the past several years, they have discontinued this practice and now simply list products as being SERP recognized without making quality distinctions amongst them. Canada Post still does note whether the products listed are capable […]
What is SERP recognition and why is it important?
Canada Post’s Software Evaluation and Recognition Program (SERP) is your guarantee that an address quality solution meets Canada Post’s minimum standards for validating and correcting addresses. In order to obtain SERP recognition, products such as nCode must successfully process test data provided by Canada Post. In order to qualify for postage discounts based on address […]
Why is address data so hard to get right?
Address data is everywhere. Approximately 80% of databases and 25% of business documents contain address data[1]. What’s more, a lot of this data is lacking in quality. Gartner has estimated that more than 25% of critical data in large corporations is flawed[2]. Data quality in general is an issue for most organizations, but address data […]