Earlier this year, we wrote about Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Internet is Rotting,” an essay about how important historical records are disappearing from the web at an alarming rate. Zittrain indirectly made the case that it would be a mistake for policymakers to rely on the web as the sole publication point for statutory notice, since such notice is in part designed to serve as the official and unassailably accurate first draft of history.
Why public notice shouldn’t be published only on the web
There’s no question that public notice ads should be displayed on the internet. That’s why 15 states have passed laws requiring newspapers that publish notices in their print edition to also run them on their website and/or on their state press association’s statewide public notice site.
After all, notices are designed to be read and lots of people read stuff on the internet.