Remember that World Streets Map Service from Esri? Of course you don’t. You’ve been using the Google or Bing maps as your backgrounds or the beautiful Esri Topographical map. Parcels in World Streets is nice I guess, but until it is in the Topographical map service, I just can’t see using it.
You have to be in awe about the pressure companies such as Esri, Google and Microsoft can put on these “premium”, “authoritative” data sources (like First American) to release their product like this. Parcels are a big deal to many folks, but the percentage that actually care about the parcel database vs the pretty picture outlines is small. Now everyone who just wants to see Parcels on their map, can do for free (well free in the sense that Esri and Google’s licensing allows it).
Why anyone would pay for parcel data anymore is beyond me.