

Ask HN: What company/industry would you like to see open their data? - rokhayakebe

Ask HN: What company/industry would you like to see open their data?
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sachinag
In the UK, postcodes - unlike US ZIP codes, they're not free

Retail product data - books, movies, music, games, electronics, etc: you can
kinda do this through affiliate programs, but it's not great

Drug companies - studies can be killed if the data looks bad; we should be
able to see every study, completed or not, and all the associated data so we
can do comparative analyses

~~~
DarkShikari
[http://wikileaks.org/wiki/UK_government_database_of_all_1,84...](http://wikileaks.org/wiki/UK_government_database_of_all_1,841,177_post_codes_together_with_precise_geographic_coordinates_and_other_information,_8_Jul_2009)

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smiler
Great... except you can't use the information legally and it will not be kept
up-to-date which makes it useless

I can't believe we have to pay for the postcode data in the UK. It should be
freely available

~~~
windsurfer
Why isn't it legal to use?

Even if I download and read a book illegally, I'm still allowed to post quotes
from the book on my blog. I'm still allowed to know the material. Why is this
list any different?

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joez
Mint.

What do people invest in? How do they spend their money? How do they lose
their money? I'd love to see the kinds of insights that could be gleamed from
it. Of course the data will have caveats but I could see reports like: 90% of
mint users who own apple stock also buy apple product or maybe 90% of users
who buy apple product short microsoft stock?

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JacobAldridge
Insurance companies. I'd love to know how they weight different variables when
determining the cost of policy (applies for health, car, home etc). If I
install $100 worth of deadlocks, will that save me $5 / year or $50 / year on
my policy? What other variables aren't I even thinking of improving?

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fretlessjazz
Real Estate, hands down. The MLS should be more open.

~~~
dpcan
As a vendor, I could not agree more. The politics surrounding each individual
MLS is a nightmare, and every time there is a rule change for public display
of MLS data, it comes in the form of a 50 page document that the agents don't
read, they just sign without realizing how they constantly make life harder
for themselves.

Openness of the MLS lies in the hands of the Agents, and they should be
demanding free and open access to their listing data so they can sell more
properties, but they just stick the the status quo.

Here's how it works. Agents PAY their local MLS's to take THEIR DATA, then the
MLS charges THEM to be able to take it back and use it.

It's the most absurd system I've ever seen.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Food. I want to know what's in every packet, and what else is made in the
factory. If you're gluten intolerant, it matters that flour is used on another
process line in the factory that makes the chocolates that themselves have no
wheat, oats, barley or rye.

If I had access to the complete ingredients list for every food item, I could
buy treats for my best friend's son without wondering whether it will send him
into anaphylactic shock.

Never mind business opportunities - this data could save lives and prevent
misery on a daily basis.

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pmjoyce
Financial institutions. While you could certainly argue that they already open
up their data by way of regulatory reporting, I think there is certainly a
case for standardizing output and possibly even increasing the scope.

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brg
Amazon. One can see sales trends of every book, cd, dvd, clothing, and
electronics store across the world. This would be amazing.

~~~
brg
Come to think of it, does anyone know if Amazon doesn't turn around and sell
sales data back to competing manufacturers? This data would be a huge benefit
in terms of where to focus advertising money and bundling efforts.

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rickdangerous1
The IT industry is ahead of the curve on this one. Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail
have been opening their data for days now...

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Janteh
IMDB! With a powerful API please.

~~~
fizx
IMDB is open for non-commercial use.

ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.imdb.com/pub/

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codexon
AT&T

I'm sure they have plenty of data from their cooperation with the NSA.

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elmindreda
The security theatre industry.

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matt-kantor
The US government.

We're making progress, but there's a long way to go.

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panic
Google. :D

~~~
wlievens
That's like your third wish being asking the fairy for another three. You
cheat, sir!

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mahmud
The military.

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SePP
public transportation in Belgium

