David,

I think that your fierce opposition to exploitation of on-line records by thieves and foreigners may be clouding your view of the emerging realities of this business.  I think that most of us who produce abstracts share your concern.  I know that I do.  There is another reason to hate on-line records -- one that is not as often mentioned as the quality issues and the identity theft dangers, all valid issues:  On-line access hurts our business.  It allows a VM to bypass us on the simple work and only send us the work that they can't accomplish on their own.

I have known John OConnor for 16 years and have worked for his company for 9 of them.  I can say with some confidence that your remarks about "being taken in" by on-line access and "naivety or short-sighted greed" are way off of the mark.

John's company took an enormous hit when our home county went on-line.  The revenue lost from just one VM was staggering.  Walking the three blocks to the recorder's office is certainly no hardship, so you can see why it would be in the company's best interest for on-line access to vanish, even if it does provide us with some conveniences.

In some cases, on-line records are actually better than the official courthouse records.  One might be better off purchasing title plant records on-line than visiting a courthouse where the records are mismanaged and/or widely misposted.  Consider:  Most Clerks/Recorders/Registrars offices are run by polititions who know or care little about this industry.  Often the position is used as a stepping stone to a higher office.  Title plants are run by people who know and have a vested interest in the industry (with the possible exception of those companies in India that I have been reading alot about lately).  If using title plant records on-line (of equal or greater quality than the courthouse records) happens to be more cost-effective and efficient than driving 100 miles to complete 1 or 2 orders, then a wise business person would regard the option as a viable, available tool.

Using on-line records and document access, in conjunction with on-site records, can also offer an opportunity to cross-reference and pick up instruments misposted in one or the other set of records, or may offer an opportunity to search records in a more efficient manner.  Searching through separate books for each type of instrument is probably the least efficient method ever devised of searching land records.  Title plants have for years posted information by legal description, reducing the chances that the instruments that you seek will be lost in a sea of names. 

As to the cut-throat pricing, John's company does not engage in the practice.  I know this to be true because I am the one who sets the prices in most cases.  We have been forced to lower prices from time to time, I will concede.  But this has always been reactionary to the market and not to lowball business away from our fellow abstractors.  Fact is, David, our fee for a current owner search in our home county is higher than yours is in your home county.

I have been reading your posts in this forum for long enough to know that you are not one to sit around and whine when things happen to affect you and your business adversely, David.  You, perhaps more than anybody else who contributes here, get up and do something about it.  I don't think, however, that lumping malevalent use of on-line records with legitimate use is productive.  They are separate issues completely.  If on-line access goes away, I will be right there with you cheering its demise.  So will John, I would bet.  But boycotting its available value while it's here is, I think, senseless.

If you want your voice to be heard by those who have the power to make changes that will benefit our industry, a unified voice is necessary.  There is power in numbers.  A couple of years ago, some people who were posting on this site at the time made a tremendous effort to provide that power through NALTEA.  Perhaps if more of us who spend so much time lamenting our business woes on SOT would join together in this organization to create the power of numbers, rather than sit around and wait for others to do it, we could have some positive effect on the industry and, thus, our own careers. 

Again, David, I know that you are one of the doers, one of the volunteers, that make this country great.  This is not personal.