"No one attacked you Joel, ad hominem or otherwise. I'm sorry you took it that way."

My name is Jonathan, I hope you search your titles with better accuracy than that - especially when you consider that you are going to comment on whether MY searches are accurate...

"The debate over whether the records should be published online has a direct relationship to searching online."

No it really doesn't except for the word ONLINE. Would it matter if all of the information were password protected and the only way to view it was through a security check run by Homeland Security? NO, because it would still be an online search. You are flat out wrong to link the two together, and I will come directly out and say that the only reason why it is being done is further the cause of keeping the records offline and in the books, and in a place where only examiners/abstractors can make heads or tails of it thereby allowing for a greater profit margin.

"As does the accuracy, completenes,  and security of the records placed online. You convinced me the records you search of the New York townships may be accurate as far as they go, but they are not complete and certainly not secure."

Have you ever done any title work in New York State, let alone New York City? I am going to guess not. So how in the **** can you write that my searches are not accurate or complete? Further, I work for ONE title insurance company - I am not an independent abstractor (though I have been prior). I KNOW what parameters need to be met for a search to be insured, probably well beyond the average independent abstractor.

If we were talking about Texas, I would take your word that the indicies are not good enough to run searches off of - but the fact is, as much as George W. would like to think otherwise, Texas is NOT the United States. It is simply Texas. When people are going to talk in terms of membership to NATIONAL organizations, then the NATIONAL picture must be considered.

"Your ad hominem accusation is unfounded and in fact by at least one definition could itself be considered an ad hominem attack on the motives of those who saw neither the question or the answer in the same way you did."

I AM questioning the motives of people who are rebeling against online information. It is clear that they have little to no knowledge base as to what is available to searchers in certain municipalities via the Web, and their arguments against it prove this.

If your issue is security of the information, fine - what does that have to do with those using the information to conduct a search?

Further, this idea of an inferior search is COMPLETELY an ad hominem way of keeping the searches going to independent abstractors. I WILL take the Pepsi challenge here - I will put any of my refinance searhes done via the services that my company subscribes to up against anyone who wants to try and do a NYC search via the City Register and the County Clerk.

The irony is that if you only went to the buildings you would STILL have to access the systems that I use, only you drove your sorry ass to the buildings to do what I am doing from my office - so in the hour it took you to even get to the buildings, I am done already. Not to mention because we used the same information, you drove that hour and didn't get an evenly remotely different product.

It would be, basically, stupid to not use the online information that is available as it is the same information available via the Clerk and Register.

The fact is, as I stated before, that people are concerned about job security, and it is nothing more than that. They attack the quality of work, despite having no knowledge of the information systems that are available to be used.

If that is what NALTEA is about - you guys can keep it. If NALTEA is truly about making a national organization to help benefit ALL of the abstractors/examiners in the country - then it would be of interest to its members to actually LEARN what the other parts of the country have available, and UNDERSTAND that things are not the same all over.

What NALTEA should be about is getting ALL examiners/abstractor knowledgable in thier profession and limiting claims. Claims DID exist using the old methodolgy of examining and will continue to happen as the information gets converted to digital media. NALTEA should be looking for ways to HELP limit the claims that exist when searches are done via the Web - not look to simply eliminate that medium to search by...