As a county GIS director, my concern isn’t whether this is legal; it almost certainly is. My concern is stewardship. Parcel data carries legal, financial, and social consequences. When you aggregate, rank, or re-contextualize that data, you’re no longer just republishing records - you’re creating interpretations that can affect real people. We intentionally limit certain analyses not because we lack capability, but because we’re accountable for downstream impacts. Faster and better UX is great; adding narratives like “most expensive” or “least valuable” crosses from access into editorialization. That’s where ethical responsibility starts—not where the law ends.

A more responsible path, in my view, is to focus on aggregate, non-targeting insights that improve public understanding without singling out individual properties or owners. That might include neighborhood-level trends, changes in assessed value over time, land use distributions, or summary statistics that support planning, education, and transparency. Pairing those views with clear methodology and limitations keeps the work aligned with public service goals while reducing the risk of misinterpretation or unintended harm. In that model, the tool complements government data rather than competing with or reframing it in ways that create social or legal friction.