The fact that this is free is mind boggling. Maybe four or five years ago I had access to a commercial court search API which had 850mn cases nationwide, and it cost a pretty penny.
Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
101–110 of 289 posts
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a possibility that there aren't any great solutions for currently. Can you message me on reddit with the link to check?
I'm not a lawyer: In the absence of a reporting mechanism for issues like this, I'd suggest at least a notice / message alongside results to indicate that they may not reflect the current state of official and amended records. (I think you may be wise to take this issue fairly seriously; there's a risk of people considering the search engine to be an authority in itself -- which, to be fair, is already a risk for any…
This is stated in simple language on the terms page, which is linked at the top/middle of every page. You have to decide between putting the same text on every page vs. a high visibility place vs. a low visibility place. I opted for 2nd to make sure it's clear.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#103The fact that this is free is mind boggling. Maybe four or five years ago I had access to a commercial court search API which had 850mn cases nationwide, and it cost a pretty penny.
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Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#104I know there is some open source (?) effort to publish and give access to court cases instead of having it behind a paid subscription channeled through the federal court system. Does anyone know how that's going?
And also, are only the primary filings of the court and parties available to be searched? What happens to depositions, evidence records, etc. that are part of the case? Are those ever available to the public?
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawyer: In the absence of a reporting mechanism for issues like this, I'd suggest at least a notice / message alongside results to indicate that they may not reflect the current state of official and amended records. (I think you may be wise to take this issue fairly seriously; there's a risk of people considering the search engine to be an authority in itself -- which, to be fair, is already a risk for any…
This is stated in simple language on the terms page, which is linked at the top/middle of every page. You have to decide between putting the same text on every page vs. a high visibility place vs. a low visibility place. I opted for 2nd to make sure it's clear.
Do most people read and comprehend terms pages before using the information they discover from search engines? (I don't know)
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#106Just an FYI -- you probably need to declare the use of Google Analytics explicitly in your terms. (Although my personal preference is something that does not require consent, like Matomo or Plausible Analytics :)
why would that be? I don't think I have ever seen a site that disclosed they are using GA? FWIW: I also prefer Plausible, and have all GA traffic blocked in my hosts file
Since it collects personally identifiable information (at least IP addresses, but it's not clear where it stops) this requires special treatment under GDPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics#Privacy
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#107oh these includes patents, weird
Yeah - is there no way to filter out patents? Bit frustrating.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#108This site will be the first stop for anyone wanting to harass another person online. Some times a little friction is a good thing. I love projects like these, but they're the digital equivalent of "dual use technologies". They can be used for good or evil. That said, nice work.
On the other hand, powerful people who wanted to harass you or hurt you have had access like this for a long time.
It's how I feel about facial recognition technology or other ML-based technology too. The worst people who could ever have access to it, already had access to it. Giving everyone access to it is just leveling the field.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#109You should be able to do an exact match search here. Trying to use double quotes on my name turns up a boatload of hits, but most of them appear to be cases where my first name is found somewhere on the page, and somewhere else my last name is found somewhere on the page.
It should also be possible to limit the search by city, state, and or region, as well as by timeframe.
Not very useful.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#110I know there is some open source (?) effort to publish and give access to court cases instead of having it behind a paid subscription channeled through the federal court system. Does anyone know how that's going? And also, are only the primary filings of the court and parties available to be searched? What happens to depositions, evidence records, etc. that are part of the case? Are those ever available to the public…
It sounds like you're referring to this:
Open Courts Act of 2021
Some commentary at these links:
- https://free.law/pacer-facts
- https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/20/pacer-cou...
- https://abovethelaw.com/legal-innovation-center/2021/03/11/t...
- https://unicourt.com/blog/modernizing-pacer-realizing-crimin...