One of the
major frustrations that I have experienced in the past 30 years working on
international data is the level of ignorance of basic geography which permeates
companies holding international data and those people employed to manage that
data. Worse, there are too many companies claiming to be experts in validating
and managing this data who take the approach that they only need to know a little
more than their prospects to blague them into becoming customers. I’ve
experienced this in teaching, too – as long as you’re one page ahead of the
kids, it’s fine.
I see a lot
of this ignorance in plain sight on company websites. There are those claiming
to validate addresses for 300+ countries and territories, for example. (Even with
the most generous interpretation of “country or territory”, and even including
uninhabited rocks with their own ISO 3166 code, you’d be hard pressed to get far beyond the 250 mark). The unfortunate aspect is that their customers don’t have
the knowledge to realise that they should probably avoid working with or trusting these companies.
I was
looking at the website of Postgrid (https://www.postgrid.com/)
and noticed this address for their United Kingdom office on their “contact us” page.
Where do I start? First of all, the time is long gone when you could use “England” to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom. The union flag is used – England uses a different flag. Worse, though, is that the address is in Edinburgh. That’s Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Not in England. I mean, tone deaf or what?
You don’t
have to look far for other red flags. Their address validation list (https://www.postgrid.com/global-address-coverage/)
includes the usual unpopulated rocks, but also faux pas such as listing “Macedonia,
The Former Yugoslav Republic of” – it’s only been five years since it changed
its name to North Macedonia.
Postgrid
were contacted for comment. They have not responded or change the information
on their “Contact Us” page at the time of writing.
I’ve also always
wondered about the lists of “customers” many address validators proudly
display. From my own experience I know how hard it is in a large company to get
official permission to be publicised as a customer; and if Amazon, SAP and Microsoft
were running all the different address validation software that are claimed in their names – about 30
each – it would be chaos. Is this just a cheap marketing trick? It leaves a
nasty taste in the mouth.
Oh well.
There are some good companies out there dealing with international data. But do
your homework – if you don’t learn yourself about the data you’re holding, you
can’t expect to be able to assess the best partner to help you to make the best
of it.
