Part 2: The nice thing about making the rules is … you get to break them!

October 25, 2006

My previous post about Realtor.com displaying sold listings led to a stimulating converation with a reader named “Endtable20″, who challenged me on my assertion that Realtor.com is going against our local MLS rules in doing so. I’ll be the first to admit I could be wrong, but here’s more evidence. You decide!

The “Internet Display Guidelines” document starts as follows:

I know from personal experience that “Guidelines” is not the right word. I tried to bend the rules myself once and got roundly called to task within a few hours. :(

Further in the document we get this: [yellow shading mine]

“Authorized User” refers to someone with whom the MLS has an agreement, be it a broker or a 3rd party like Realtor.com. “Electronic Clients” are people who view this information online.

It’s pretty clear that displaying “sold listings” is prohibited.

The final shaded text says that the Authorized User may “augment” the MLS data with “additional data not otherwise prohibited from display so long as the source of such data is clearly identified.”

Realtor.com follows the rule about identifying the source of the other data…

…but that’s a moot point because the data being displayed (sold listings) is clearly prohibited.

Therre are only two ways I can see that would make this ok:

  1. The agreement that REIL has with Realtor.com is a different agreement than REIL has with every other “Authorized User.”
  2. Creative legal reasoning that says the data being displayed is not “sold listings” but “sold homes.”

By a similar argument, I could get around the prohibition on displaying “sellers’ or occupants’ names, phone numbers or email addresses” by

  1. identifying the non-MLS source from which I got that data and
  2. referring to “sellers’ or occupants’ names, phone numbers or email addresses” as “owners’ or renters’ personal information“? Something like this, perhaps:

Seems pretty clear to me. Am I missing something?

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Written by Kevin · Filed Under MLS, REIL, Real estate, Realtor.com, Technology 

Comments

2 Responses to “Part 2: The nice thing about making the rules is … you get to break them!”

  1. EndTable20 on October 25th, 2006 10:02 pm

    “Creative legal reasoning that says the data being displayed is not ’sold listings’ but ’sold homes.’”

    LOL. This is actually a very good point, requiring no creative reasoning at all. No one sells listings. Realtors facilitate the sale of *properties* (which are represented in databases and advertising media by listings). This, while perhaps a technical detail, could constitute enough to legally invalidate that whole clause.

    IAC, I see your reasoning, and how it certainly could be interpreted to mean that any user of the MLS’s data can be forbidden to display certain other features, regardless of the datasource used to populate those features — although I’m not completely clear from the wording of the agreement in question that that is indeed what it necessarily says. (And the example above concerning mythical “sold listings” makes me doubt the author’s accuracy of language throughout.)

    I would find it very interesting to hear the NAR’s own comments on this issue, what it claims its intended interpretation of the agreement text is.

    As for “displaying ’sellers’ or occupants’ names, phone numbers or email addresses’”… Does Realtor.com do this? I must have missed that one…

    Good stuff, BTW. :-)

  2. Kevin Boer, Alain Pinel Realtors on October 26th, 2006 11:39 am

    In the end, I think we come to the same conclusion. I’m saying: Technically, Realtor.com shouldn’t be displaying information on sold properties, but because the rule behind that
    a) is silly and antiquated
    b) is being flouted by many people
    c) isn’t being enforced anyways
    therefore, let’s just ignore its technical illegality and tip our hats to Realtor.com for (finally!) doing something to take on Zillow et. al in meeting the public’s appetite for getting information on sold properties.

    You’re saying: There is indeed a substantative legal reason, not a creative skirt-the-law reason, why Realtor.com is completely in the right to be displaying sold data, and in fact the phrase that appears to make showing solds illegal may itself be…illegal.

    We come to the same end result: Let’s leave it up there.

    My point about showing property owners’ private details by calling it something else is merely an analogy about what _I_ would consider a similar set of reasoning to what enables Realtor.com to display solds. (If I understand your reasoning, EndTable20, you would not consider it analagous — hence your questioning it.)

    But I’ll tell you what will happen, and probably pretty soon. Somebody will start putting up things like homeowners’ private details, try to get away with it by calling it something else, and then point to what Realtor.com is doing with solds as a justification.

    BTW, EndTable20, curious about who you are and what you do? I’m assuming you’re a real estate professional of some sort. Agent? Loan officer? Internet site?

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