I wrote in March 2005 about the public-records search engine Pretrieve. A major appeal of the site was that it was free. Go to Pretrieve today and the front page still describes the service as free — even highlighting the word free in red type — but it lies. Enter a query and you are rerouted to the paid search service Intelius, where it will cost you a minimum of $7.95 to see results. As far as I can tell, this change just took place within the past couple weeks. Sorry to see the demise of this useful free resource.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.