Michael: The technology fee is not something that is just a random thing, think of it like the Fed Hwy taxes you pay when you buy gasoline- it is there for the future use- and as it turned out was a good deal- the respective counties had the funds available to introduce a good , complete working system for each of them-
I never said we had a problem with ID theft here from the on line systems-
Other places can be ahead of "my" location as far as the time zone, but they do not have the experience I have in the counties I do work in to complete and return a full search like I do- they just can't do it !
If and when your county does in fact go on line, talk to the clerk and suggest some other fail safe security solution that will limit access to those examiners in your local area- we have to complete an application that is filed with the clerk, and pay the fees each month , but some kind of "local" restriction would be helpful- of course, you will run into some kind of problem by doing that also- what of those outside your county that have the right to access your county? There are ways to do that- and the big one is with a requirement of a "static IP" they are hard to get, but do seriously limit access.
Unlike some of the states  like Florida, Texas , Ohio (not sure about Ohio) and of course Arizona, that just throw everything up on the internet and let anyone thumb through it as they wish- and this seems to be with little or no forethought as to the ramifications of doing that- but they are the elected officials the citizens have put in office- it must be alright with them- or we would hear about them being thrown out of office- Just take a look at all David Boys has written about the clerk in Fort Bend,Texas- Dianne Wilson- she has been there for a long time doing her best to undermine the citizens , according to the articles- and the legislature just sides right up with her too to assist in making what she does "OK" - these are the real eye sores of the on line systems- they publish everything for anyone to use and exploit. I have not read much about Arizona other than they have the highest ID theft in the country- so they must give out donuts with the ID info-
Must be a haven for on line predators there-I wonder how hard it is to do a title in Arizona- Might have to give that a try some day.
Steve Meinecke