Publication of legal notices.

Whenever by statute an official or legal advertisement or a publication or notice in a newspaper or on a governmental agency website has been or is directed or permitted in the nature of or in lieu of process, or for constructive service, or in initiating, assuming, reviewing, exercising, or enforcing jurisdiction or power, or for any purpose, including all legal notices and advertisements of sheriffs and tax collectors, such legislation, whether existing or repealed, means either of the following:

(1) A publication in a newspaper printed and published periodically at least once a week, containing at least 25 percent of its words in the English language, available to the public generally for the publication of official or other notices and customarily containing information of a public character or of interest or of value to the residents or owners of property in the county where published, or of interest or of value to the general public, which:

(a) Has an audience consisting of at least 10 percent of the households in the county or municipality, as determined by the most recent decennial census, where the legal or public notice is being published or posted, by calculating the combination of the total of the number of print copies reflecting the day of highest print circulation, of which at least 25 percent of such print copies must be delivered to individuals’ home or business addresses, as certified biennially by a certified independent third-party auditor, and the total number of online unique monthly visitors to the newspaper’s website from within the state, as measured by industry-accepted website analytics software. The newspaper must also be sold, or otherwise available to the public, at no less than 10 publicly accessible outlets. For legal and public notices published by nongovernmental entities, the newspaper’s audience in the county or municipality where the project, property, or other primary subject of the notice is located must meet the 10 percent threshold; or

(b) Is entered or qualified to be admitted and entered as periodical class mail at a post office in the county where published.

(2) A publication on a publicly accessible website under s. 50.0311.