15. An apparatus for providing location information, comprising: a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, and a network interface device coupled to the processor, wherein the memory holds instructions that when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform the operations of: distributing a user interface application to at least one client device over a computer network, the user interface application configured for receiving user input selecting a type of a non-network object from a set of object types each characterized by a different location data type, obtaining corresponding location information for the non-network object according to its characteristic location data type at least in part from user input, sending the corresponding location information to the apparatus, and requesting assignment of a unique numeric address for the non-network object; receiving a new address request with the corresponding location information from the at least one client device generated by the user interface application, for each non-network object; determining a numeric address for the each non-network object based at least in part on its selected type that is not used as an address for any other object of an identical type; maintaining each numeric address in association with the corresponding location information for the each non-network object as a record in an on-line data structure holding different numeric addresses each associated with a different one of the corresponding location information; and serving the corresponding location information for the each non-network object selected from the on-line data structure in response to at least one query containing the each numeric address.
23. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the memory holds further instructions for determining the numeric address at least in part by executing an algorithm that minimizes Levenshtein distance between the numeric address and the location information.