The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has told the US Postal Service to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, and provide information about the location, phone numbers, business hours, and final collection times of every US Post Office. The USPS had claimed that the information was “information of a commercial nature” and therfore not subject to public dislosure. This despite the fact that the information is already available on the USPS’s “Post Office Locator” web page.

The USPS contended that revealing the information en masse would, among other things, draw customers away from the USPS web site, and undermine its “business relationship with the company, Switchboard, Inc., which maintains and operates the Post Office Locator website”. The USPS’s “Web Specialist”, however, admitted that “USPS pays nothing to Switchboard, Inc., for its web services, but permits Switchboard to redirect Post Office Locator users to other Switchboard client sites.”

The court held that “Post office names, addresses, telephone numbers, hours of operation and final collection times are not ‘information of a commercial nature’”. The court did not decide “whether the complete USPS database from which Carlson requested an electronic version of this particular information is commercial nor whether the USPS database may be exempt from disclosure. In so ruling we do not preclude further consideration by the district court nor do we preclude consideration of reasonable conditions.”

The case now goes back to the District Court for reconsideration based on the Appeals Court decision. The USPS, having lost the appeal, will be required to pay Carlson’s costs for the Appeals Court proceedings.