This idea is so close to being great though. It just needs a couple changes:
> Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites.
1. The site shouldn’t get your address at all. They print the code on the package, mail it to Japan Post, and Japan Post takes care of delivering it to you.
2. You should be able to generate new codes arbitrarily.
i.e. A service like Apple’s Hide My Email, but for physical mail.
Japan Post represents only a portion of shipping providers in Japan, for our idea to work others will need the same privileged access to the system: Yamato, Sagawa etc.
This will also require to alter the package label on the last mile because requiring the courier to scan every package or letter before they could even see an apartment number will slow things down to a crawl.
The relabeling to show the actual address is something that carriers are already doing for C2C marketplaces and their anonymous shipping features already.
It would be pretty trivial to mark some addresses as private. So only the delivery service can resolve it.
My guess is that's already planned, but they don't put all details in the first press release.