To amend sections 7.12 and 5721.01 and to enact sections 7.16, 125.181, 125.182, 125.183, and 5721.012 of the Revised Code to establish the State-Sanctioned Public Notice web site, to permit any notice required to be published by statute or rule to be published on the web site, and to make changes to the qualifications for newspapers publishing public notices and the methods by which newspapers publish notice.

Section 1. That sections 7.12 and 5721.01 be amended and sections 7.16, 125.181, 125.182, 125.183, and 5721.012 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:

Sec. 7.12.  Whenever any legal publication is required by law to be made in a newspaper published in a municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision, the newspaper shall also be a newspaper of general circulation in the municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision, without further restriction or limitation upon a selection of the newspaper to be used. If no newspaper is published in such municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision, such legal publication shall be made in any newspaper of general circulation therein. If there are less than two newspapers published in any municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision in the manner defined by this section, then any legal publication required by law to be made in a newspaper published in a municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision may be made in any newspaper regularly issued at stated intervals from a known office of publication located within the municipal corporation, county, or other political subdivision. As used in this section, a known office of publication is a public office where the business of the newspaper is transacted during the usual business hours, and such office shall be shown by the publication itself.

In addition to all other requirements, a newspaper or newspaper of general circulation, except those publications performing the functions described in section 2701.09 of the Revised Code for a period of one year immediately preceding any such publication required to be made, shall be a publication bearing a title or name, regularly issued as frequently as once a week for a definite price or consideration paid for by not less than fifty per cent of those to whom distribution is made, having a second class mailing privilege, being not less than four pages, published continuously during the immediately preceding one-year period, and circulated generally in the political subdivision in which it is published. Such publication must be of a type to which the general public resorts for passing events of a political, religious, commercial, and social nature, current happenings, announcements, miscellaneous reading matter, advertisements, and other notices, that has at least twenty-five per cent editorial, nonadvertising content, exclusive of inserts, measured relative to total publication space, and an audited circulation to at least fifty per cent of the households in the newspaper's retail trade zone as defined by the audit.

Any notice required to be published in a newspaper of general circulation may appear on an insert placed in such a newspaper. A responsible party who is required to publish such a notice shall consider various advertising media to determine which media might reach the intended public most broadly. The responsible party need publish the notice in only one qualified medium to meet the requirements of law.

Sec. 7.16. A notice required to be published by a provision of a statute or rule may be published on the state-sanctioned public notice web site. A responsible party who is required to publish such a notice may submit a copy of the notice and a request for publication to the state-sanctioned public notice web site service provider, together with the fee charged. The responsible party shall identify in the notice or request the provision of the statute or rule that requires the notice to be published. The responsible party may, but is not required to, prepare the request on the form that can be downloaded from the web site. The notice permitted under this section is cumulative with other notice provisions under statute or rule.

Sec. 125.181. The state-sanctioned public notice web site service provider shall publish on the state-sanctioned public notice web site a notice that is submitted to the service provider and that is required to be published by a provision of a statute or rule. The service provider shall collect from the responsible party submitting the notice a fee for posting the notice on the state-sanctioned public notice web site.

The service provider shall set the fee, not to exceed ten dollars. The fee initially set may not thereafter be increased until two years have elapsed. The service provider shall publish the amount of the fee on the web site.

Sec. 125.182. The office of information technology shall select a web site service provider to establish, operate, and maintain, and to fund the operation, establishment, and maintenance of, the state-sanctioned public notice web site. The provider shall have all the following qualifications:

(A) Possesses appropriate hardware infrastructure and intellectual property for feasible processes deploying a state-sanctioned and national web site with appropriate methods for communicating with the courts of this state;

(B) Possesses sufficient minimal capital resources to establish and ensure smooth and uninterrupted ongoing operation of the state-sanctioned public notice web site;

(C) Provides a reasonable plan for implementing the state-sanctioned public notice web site so that notices required to be published by a statute or rule may be posted and published on the state-sanctioned public notice web site with reasonable ease;

(D) Demonstrates, and is capable of implementing, the technology necessary for the state-sanctioned public notice web site at no cost to the state;

(E) Employs personnel, in number and by qualification, who are necessary to ensure smooth transmission of data to and the posting and publication of notices on the state-sanctioned public notice web site;

(F) Posts a bond in an amount to be determined by the office of information technology that is sufficient to guarantee operation of the state-sanctioned public notice web site as the public interest requires.

The service provider shall bear the costs of establishing, operating, and maintaining the state-sanctioned public notice web site. The state neither has nor may assume liability for those costs.

Sec. 125.183. In establishing, maintaining, and operating the state-sanctioned public notice web site, the web site service provider shall do all of the following:

(A) Use a domain name for the web site that will be easily recognizable and remembered by and understandable to users of the web site;

(B) Maintain the web site so that it is fully accessible to and searchable by members of the public at all times;

(C) Not charge a fee to a person who accesses, searches, or otherwise uses the web site;

(D) Ensure that notices displayed on the web site conform to the requirements that would apply to the notices as if they were being published in a newspaper or other publication, as directed in the relevant provision of the statute or rule;

(E) Ensure that notices continue to be displayed on the web site for not less than the length of time required by the relevant provision of the statute or rule;

(F) Devise and display on the web site a form that may be downloaded and used to request publication of a notice on the web site;

(G) Charge responsible parties submitting notices for publication on the web site only the fee fixed by the service provider;

(H) Enable responsible parties to submit notices and requests for their publication and to pay the fee charged therefor on-line;

(I) Maintain an archive of notices that no longer are displayed on the web site;

(J) Enable notices, both those currently displayed and those archived, to be accessed by key word, by party name, by case number, by county, and by other useful identifiers;

(K) Maintain adequate systemic security and backup features, and develop and maintain a contingency plan for coping with and recovering from power outages, systemic failures, and other unforeseeable difficulties;

(L) Maintain the web site in such a manner that it will not infringe legally protected interests, so that vulnerability of the web site to interruption because of litigation or the threat of litigation is reduced;

(M) Submit a status report to the secretary of state twice annually that demonstrates compliance with the statutory requirements governing publication of notices;

(N) Submit to a quality review, if the director of the office of information technology requests.

The service provider shall bear the expense of maintaining the state-sanctioned public notice web site domain name.

In the course of a quality review, the director of the office of information technology is entitled to, and the service provider shall provide, full access to the hardware and software used by, and the technical and informational operations of, the service provider that relate to operation and maintenance of the state-sanctioned public notice web site.

Sec. 5721.01.  (A) As used in this chapter:

(1) "Delinquent lands" means all lands upon which delinquent taxes, as defined in section 323.01 of the Revised Code, remain unpaid at the time a settlement is made between the county treasurer and auditor pursuant to division (C) of section 321.24 of the Revised Code.

(2) "Delinquent vacant lands" means all lands that have been delinquent lands for at least two years and that are unimproved by any dwelling.

(B) As used in sections 5719.04, 5721.03, and 5721.31 of the Revised Code and in any other sections of the Revised Code to which those sections are applicable, a newspaper or newspaper of general circulation shall be a publication bearing a title or name, regularly issued as frequently as once a week for a definite price or consideration paid for by not less than fifty per cent of those to whom distribution is made, having a second class mailing privilege, being not less than four pages, published continuously during the immediately preceding one-year period, and circulated generally in the political subdivision in which it is published. Such publication shall be of a type to which the general public resorts for passing events of a political, religious, commercial, and social nature, current happenings, announcements, miscellaneous reading matter, advertisements, and other notices, that has at least twenty-five per cent editorial, nonadvertising content, exclusive of inserts, measured relative to total publication space, and an audited circulation to at least fifty per cent of the households in the newspaper's retail trade zone as defined by the audit.

Sec. 5721.012. Any notice required to be published in a newspaper or newspaper of general circulation as defined in section 5721.01 of the Revised Code may appear on an insert placed in such a newspaper. A responsible party who is required to publish such a notice shall consider various advertising media to determine which media might reach the intended public most broadly. The responsible party need publish the notice in only one qualified medium to meet the requirements of law.

Section 2. That existing sections 7.12 and 5721.01 of the Revised Code are hereby repealed.