Re:Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
by richardbarosky on Saturday February 19, 2022 @05:45PM
(#30401243)
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
by jka on Saturday February 19, 2022 @05:51PM
(#30401286)
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
by runnerup on Saturday February 19, 2022 @06:13PM
(#30401450)
Absolutely not. A vanishingly tiny percent ever click on the terms link.
Re:Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
by sharken on Sunday February 20, 2022 @01:23PM
(#30407926)
Indeed, so the only good option would be to only search public records.
Everything else should not be searchable.
Re:Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
by haswell on Sunday February 20, 2022 @01:11PM
(#30407796)
It’s good that this is listed in the terms, but this raises two concerns:
1) People don’t read terms. Should they? Yes. Do they? No.
2) This language is more like a disclaimer than a term of use. I would not assume that disclaimers about the accuracy of the result would be found in the terms.
So yes, the terms link is prominent, but no, I don’t think it addresses this issue.
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 search engine, but since this one is more domain-focused, it's possible that some users could overdevelop a sense that the results are accurate and complete)