Aggregating Useful Information: Delaware Legal Notices

There are sites that aggregate content from other sites on the web, such as Google News, and provide a useful and valuable service. Others scrape content from different web sites around a certain theme or phrase, and try to rank highly in search engines while selling advertising on those pages.

Those second kind of aggregation sites are annoying, especially when you come across them while attempting to search for something. But a site that aggregates information from a wide variety of sources, and makes it easy to find useful and helpful information is a wonderful thing.

Tim Converse is the person at Yahoo who is in charge of trying to keep spam web pages from showing in search results. He describes some of the other sites that bring together information from different sites and sources in a post titled simply Aggregation.

Delaware blogger Mike Mahaffie points out one of those wonderful aggregation sites that can make things a lot easier for people in the legal profession in Delaware.

The site is Delaware Public Notices, and it collects together the legal notices that you see in the classified sections of newspapers around the State. The site is a joint effort between the newspapers of Delaware, and the Maryland - Delaware - DC Press Association (MDDC).

The types of notices shown include:

• Name Changes,


• Family Court proceedings, including things such as Divorce Actions, Protection from Abuse Hearings, Custody Actions,


• Public Notices of Meetings and Regulatory Actions from Delaware Government Agencies,


• Requests for Proposals and Invitations to Bid for Government Contracts,


• Notices of Public Sales,


• Merger and Acquisition Notices,


• Applications for Liquor Licenses and other Licenses,


• Notices of Rules to Show Cause in Delaware Courts,


• Notices of Approval for Work Release and Supervised Custody for Delaware Inmates,


• Abandoned Property and Escheat Notices,


• Mechanics Liens and Garagekeeper Sales Notices,


• Government Seizure Notices,


• Sheriff Sales of Property Notices,


• Administration of Estates and Appointments of Administrators from the Register of Wills, and;


• Other publicly published notices as required by law

It's nice to have these all together in one place.

The legislature of the State of Delaware was considering altering the requirements to post such legal notices in newspapers - instead making such notices available electronically in one centralized place. They haven't made a decision yet whether to do that or not, but a site like this one makes it easier for people to learn of notices published in a wide variety of papers in the State.

I've added the site in our navigation on the left, since I figure we will be visiting the site on a regular basis.