BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1627| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: AB 1627 Author: Gomez (D) Amended: 5/6/14 in Assembly Vote: 21 SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE : 10-0, 6/10/14 AYES: DeSaulnier, Gaines, Cannella, Galgiani, Hueso, Lara, Liu, Pavley, Roth, Wyland NO VOTE RECORDED: Beall ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 73-0, 5/23/14 (Consent) See last page for vote SUBJECT : Vehicles registration services: disclosure of service fees SOURCE : Author DIGEST : This bill requires a business that is licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to provide vehicle registration services to disclose to its customers that they could register their vehicles directly with DMV without paying the business's additional fee. ANALYSIS : Existing law prohibits a person from driving, moving, or parking a motor vehicle on the highway or in a public parking facility unless it is registered with the DMV. Registering a vehicle or renewing a vehicle registration is an easy process that a vehicle owner can typically complete quickly on the DMV's Internet Web site by providing the vehicle's license plate number and paying annual taxes and fees associated CONTINUED AB 1627 Page 2 with registration. A registration service is a business that for compensation processes vehicle registration and related documents, including transmitting them to the DMV. The DMV licenses and regulates vehicle registration services. In order for a business to act as a registration service, it must obtain a license or temporary permit from the DMV by filing an application, submitting to a background check and inspection of its place of business, posting a surety bond, and paying a one-time fee of $150 and annual renewal fees of $15. This bill requires every registration service to disclose to each customer in writing at its place of business and in a conspicuous place on its Internet Web site that the vehicle registration services it provides are provided by the DMV without an additional fee. Background If a person uses a Web search engine to find the DMV's Web site or simply searches for "vehicle registration," the top results of the search will be a private registration service and not the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The author's office points out that many who search for the site on which to renew their vehicles' registration mistakenly believe that the first Web site listed is the official page of the California DMV. He/she reports that licensed registration services may and do pay Google and other search engines to be at the top of those search engine results. While licensed registration services disclose on their respective online Web sites and places of business that the business is not a branch of the California DMV, this disclosure is typically at the bottom of the page in small print, where many online customers often do not see the disclosure. Customers may then go through the registration process through this third-party service provider and be charged a fee for the performance of the service, which they could receive without charge on the DMV Web site. The author introduced this bill to inform California vehicle owners that they have other options available to them when selecting a registration service provider. Without the disclosure required by this bill, many customers may be misled to believe that a registration service licensed by the DMV is CONTINUED AB 1627 Page 3 actually the DMV itself. At this point a customer may pay extra fees for a service that the DMV offers at no additional cost. This bill requires these registration services to inform their potential customers that they could receive these same services free of charge from the DMV in order to prevent them from being misled and misinformed. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 73-0, 5/23/14 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Bigelow, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau, Chávez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray, Grove, Hagman, Hall, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein, Mansoor, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Olsen, Pan, Patterson, Perea, John A. Pérez, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk, Williams, Yamada, Atkins NO VOTE RECORDED: Bonilla, Harkey, Roger Hernández, Melendez, Nestande, V. Manuel Pérez, Vacancy JA:d 6/25/14 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED **** END **** CONTINUED