Yes, I believe these companies should use membership policies but it is not likely they will be able to truly control their membership this way. Choicepoint had one of the strongest membership policies but it was a piece of cake for the Nigerian scam artists to create fifty bogus accounts using identities they had previously stolen. With the fifty stolen accounts they were able to steal about a quarter of a million identies from the records Choicepoint had compiled. I'm not sure Choicepoint would have ever discovered the breach if their accounting department hadn't noticed they were being paid.

As to redacting the sensitive information, on a mass basis, this would be an impossible task. Software vendors are claiming they have the programs but these programs are proving to be a dismal failure. They cannot identify what is sensitive, can't tell the difference between a social security number and a case number, and don't understand the difference between a maiden name. There are some 800 exceptions to the public records act that would have to be redacted. If it were possible to redact all of the exceptions, the document would look like something that has gone through a CIA screen.

In my view, no one should be selling the documents in bulk, over the iinternet or otherwise. The records should be accessible only from within the jurisdiction. Local professionals would still have access to a clean copy at the courthouse or a local title plant. This is a system that worked exceedingly well for 200 years.