It’s your listing, we’ll fight for your right to keep it

As an agent, either you own your listing and the data advertising it, or you don't.

That, in a nutshell is the question presented last week when Homestore, owner and operator of REALTOR.com®, forced a la mode to disable its REALTOR.com® listing import feature.

a la mode's Agent XSites are websites and contact and schedule management tools, primarily for individual real estate agents like you. Smart agents invest in securing an online presence which they use to market themselves as the real estate agent of choice in their area. In addition to consumer-oriented content, mortgage and budget calculators, and the like, Agent XSites obviously allow agents to showcase the properties they have listed for sale in their area.

Agents may upload photos, property information, listing prices, etc. on their listings directly to their Agent XSite. However, since many Agent XSite users have already uploaded all this information to REALTOR.com®, Agent XSites included a feature which allowed the agent to type the MLS number of their listing into XSites' listings wizard, hit submit, and have all of the information already uploaded to REALTOR.com® displayed on their personal Agent XSite. This was a one-time download - each time the property was viewed on an Agent XSite, the photos and information were residing on the XSite, not "scraped" from REALTOR.com's® servers. Our market research indicates about a third of the thousands of Agent XSites users took advantage of this timesaving feature.

Homestore demanded we disable the feature claiming (among other things) "copyright" to your listings data, and that Agent XSites using this feature are violating their Terms of Use.

We were puzzled, to say the least. The Terms of Use they cited require that the agent uploading the listings data be the owner of that listing. If you own it, can't you use it as you see fit? Aren't you uploading it to REALTOR.com® in the first place so you can sell the house? Why then, rather than helping you sell it, is Homestore/REALTOR.com® making it more difficult to market the house in another, non-competing medium - your own personal website?

Think about what would happen if you put an ad for a listing in the local paper. Then, you tried to put the same ad in another paper in the area - and the first paper sued to stop you, claiming "copyright" and violation of "Terms of Use." That would be nonsense. REALTOR.com® is an advertising medium. Nothing more, nothing less.

We shouldn't have been surprised. After all, REALTOR.com® charges $599 for "Showcase" websites - a price that would never be supported in an open market, but for the fact that REALTOR.com® "Showcase" websites are the only ones agents can link to in their REALTOR.com® listings.

Similarly, the only virtual tours (complete with "spinning house" icon) agents can link to from their REALTOR.com® listings are REALTOR.com®-sanctioned virtual tours - which REALTOR.com® will sell to you for $40 a pop. There are just as functional, effective virtual tour creators out there that are far less expensive, but again, REALTOR.com® has created an online monopoly and is exploiting that monopoly for all it's worth.

We have never heard of a successful business model that treated customers as competitors. And we marvel at a mindset whereby a company induces agents to upload data to its site for the purpose of helping sell a home, then makes it more difficult for those agents to sell that home. But that's what Homestore is doing. You want to showcase your listings on REALTOR.com® to help sell a home, you want to use other tools - your Agent XSite, virtual tours, etc. - to complement, not "compete" with, that effort. And Homestore could threaten legal action if you do.

We offered to pay for a license - for you to use your own data - to allow the REALTOR.com® import feature to continue. We were rebuffed, for reasons that still frankly puzzle us. Homestore says it's in the business of helping agents sell homes. Its CEO, when he took the reins in 2002, promised his top priority would be healing strained relationships with and better serving REALTORS®. That begs the troubling question – why is Homestore digging its heels in so hard and relying on legal recourse?

While we may have disabled the feature, rest assured this is not the end of the fight. The issue is too important - it boils down to who owns your data, like we said above.

What you can do
Start off by complaining to your board directly and demand that they raise the issue with REALTOR.com® that their Terms of Use agreement be quickly changed to not restrict your private use of your own listing.

Second, raise the issue with your friends and associates - this affects all agents, regardless of software brand.

Thirdly, let Homestore executives know personally how you feel. Homestore's CEO, Mike Long, said when he took the reins at Homestore in 2002 that he would work hard to repair damaged relationships with the boards and the membership, and we have to take him at his word. We think some leadership on this issue would resolve it to everyone's benefit. Mike's asked on many occasions that REALTORS® feel free to contact him directly, so here's his e-mail address: mike.long@homestore.com. Let him know what you think.

Further, you can also contact the Federal Trade Commission and explain the situation. Click here to locate your local office.

Your rights and your profession will be affected if you and your associates don't take a stand on this broader issue now and assert once and for all that nobody else owns your listing or the advertisements for it.

We'll continue to be your advocates, even when it's difficult and expensive. We're a large and highly profitable company, and have the means to pursue issues such as this for your benefit - and we will do so.