It isn't always necessary to search through Web sites, because online records can often be purchased in bulk for a fraction of what it would cost to buy them at a courthouse, Bloys said. For example, he said, officials in Fort Bend County last year sold a Florida company online copies of every document ever filed with the county clerk's office. The cost for the estimated 20 million documents was about US$2,500, said Bloys, who wrote an article about the transaction in his newsletter.

A call seeking comment on the matter from the Fort Bend County recorder's office hadn't been returned as of Computerworld's publication deadline.

The company that bought the information is among a large number of businesses -- including some in India, China and the Philippines -- that routinely download records directly from county Web sites, Bloys claimed.

Bruce Hogman, a Broward County county resident who recently raised concerns about the posting of personally identifiable information with Baldwin's office, said real estate professionals and other business users don't need all of the information included in documents posted online.

For real estate transactions, Hogman said, "they need nothing more than the names of the parties, the date of the transaction, the consideration, the book and page in which the data is recorded, together with the legal description -- and not the actual image of the documents themselves."