Approximately two weeks ago, California's statewide office of Insurance Commissioner issued a legal opinion based on preexisting state codes that would have regulated the title insurance industry in a new and restrictive manner.  The opinion would have barred title insurance companies from providing copies of public records to realtors, lawyers and anyone else who was not one of their current clients with a full open escrow in the works. 

  This appears to be part and parcel to a recent history, over the past decade, of restricting the ability of real estate and relate industry professionals from providing gifts and other incentives to woo clients.  While such actions have put the kabosh on sales representative departments, it has nnot been intended to close down the ability of title companies to provide basic customer service. 

  Before this departmental ruling went into effect, it was retracted.  A collective sigh of relief went out from the few remaining customer service professionals who, after decades, were able to beg for their jobs for a few more ....days?  months?....who knows?  Restructuring meetings were held with some vetran staffers in San Mateo County title companies, mostly resulting in their regular clients being told of the coming change.  The reversal, while a relief to title employees and realtors alike, is a foreshadowing of things that might still come to pass. 

  Abstractors may or may not get some good business out of this in the short term if it's ever implemented.  However, don't count your chickens before they're hatched.  The urban and suburban county recorders throughout California are currently training their staff members in redaction technologies in order to remove social security numbers from records.  This is likely to be a short step away from changes in the statutes which will allow California, much like Arizona, to provide actual document copies online.  If California is one thing, it is indeed hi-tech, and to see other smaller Western States introduce innovative technology seems wrong to many Californians, who will slowly steer our big government toward doing the same.  As California goes, so will others. 

  I know that many people have disagreed with this assessment on the SOT Forums, but every day, as more and more municipalities and county agencies and state offices go online, I am proven correct.  Some point to a few cases where data is redacted, where formerly online records are removed from the internet, and they project hope that a backlash of privacy will come along and sweep much "progress" away.  The problems with this latter theory are too numerous to enumerate.  They are social, political, legal and technological and would be a great basis for a collegiate debate. 

  The tidal wave has arrived.  We are still in the same fundamental market but with different cultural forces at play.  Technology forces us to close shop or adapt.  If television brought the world into our living rooms, the internet is pushing us back out into the world.  Opportunity is ours to provide a greater range of services than ever before.  Expand to more counties, offer other records research (courts, building and planning records, state filing like corporations and UCC, genealogy records, people finder services, assessment filings, municipal permit reviews, building inspections and more).  Keep your eyes and ears open for new challenges and new opportunities!