Curt,

You are correct. The courthouse records are not always correct, so how can any clone of the courthouse records be correct? When we find errors in the courthouse records the clerks correct them, but there is no subsequent correction to the clones that have been bought in bulk from the county. Even a judges order to seal a record has no affect on anything except the official public record. Your own state of Florida attempted to protect it's citizens by allowing you to request your social security number be redacted from a document if it was found online. Your governer found his online and promptly asked for a received a redaction. But it did not affect the cloned records or any clones of the clones that have already been sold.

This example relates to an error made by your governor when he included a social security number on a document that he had reason to believe would never be packaged and exported all over the world wide web. But it is just as valid when applied to a clerical error that is subsequently corrected. In either case, the error is only corrected in the official public records. This is probably why every site offering public records online that I have visited has a disclaimer that the information provided is not "the official public record".

I have no problem with your purchasing the records in bulk from courthouse for inhouse use provided it is limited to inhouse. But anyone can do the same thing that you did and this is a problem. I noticed recently when one company purchased the records just as you have and then claimed their software could provide an online do it yourself title search that you also had a problem. The foreign outsource companies, agragators, marketing companies, or anyone else can purchase the county records in bulk at a fraction of the cost and use it for whatever purpose profits them.

Legislators and courts all over the country are beginning to recognize the folly of the laws that treat the entire public record the same as one public record. Not too long ago a one court stated, the "whole" of the records deserves greater protection than any single record. The Supreme Court have consistantly stated the same thing in that the right to privacy outweighs any right of the public access.

Their is no doubt there are errors in the public record and in the laws that govern access. Both the laws and the records are being corrected at the source but have no affect on the records already released in error.

Thank you for your kind words regarding my mini-bio. I wish I had met you at the conference. We could have spent some time swapping stories. I think I would have liked that.

Regarding the exchanges with Bill. I really felt a little sorry for him. I think he is probably a very good man but he seemed to have little knowledge of the damage his product is causing to the industry or the people we serve. I don't really believe his statement that he felt no ethical obligation to the people he is hurting. I just don't think he can do anything about it without damaging his companies bottom line.