Mike,

I'm not trying to be a smart aleck or anything, but how would a standard rate among domestic abstractors help anybody compete against the $4.25 search from an overseas sweatshop? 

I understand that you are also lamenting about the locals undercutting each other.  In that respect, I hope the folks who rush first to cheapen their efforts will learn more about the business end of running a business - and that they don't find themselves under water when the bills come due.

It might help to find a way to convince our representatives in the state legislatures that it is folly to allow, much less require, the custodians of our records to sell our records in bulk to those who would ship them overseas.  Open records are good and necessary to a point.  Facilitating foreign corporations (by foreign, I mean out of state as well as out of country) does nothing for the citizens of that state.  It is the citizens of our various states who pay for the care of our public records, for the benefit of the citizens of our states.