"I understand people's concerns, but a lot of this information has been freely available for public inspection since Plymouth rock," said Carol Fogelsong, the assistant comptroller in Orange County, Fla.

She argued that the amount of documents containing sensitive information may be less than people assume. Orange County, for example, is in the midst of inspecting about 30 million pages dating back to1970 for Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers and debit card numbers. So far, 7 million pages covering 2.2 million documents recorded between June 1, 2002 and April 30, 2005 have been inspected: Out of those pages, 119,000, or 1.63 percent, have information that needed to be redacted, she said.

It is not always necessary to search for data, as online records often can be purchased in bulk for a fraction of what it would cost to buy from the courthouse, Bloys said. One example: Fort Bend County, Texas, last year sold to a Florida company every document ever filed with the county clerk's office -- estimated to be around 20 million -- for roughly US$2,500. Bloys wrote about the transaction in his newsletter in December. Fort Bend County officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The company that purchased the information is one of a large number of companies -- including firms in India, China and the Philippines -- that routinely download records directly from county Web sites, sometimes invoking the Freedom of Information Act, Bloys said.

Bloys is concerned that identity thieves and other criminals appear to be taking advantage of the easy availability of information; He pointed to a sharp increase in deed fraud in Florida and identity theft in Arizona. "A signature and notary seal extracted from an online county is all that is needed to take your home," he said.