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Sarasota Association of REALTORS - are they Acting Anti-Competitive?
By Ryan Ward | October 20, 2008
I’ll leave my opinion out and let you decide for yourself - with a short history. In 2002, the National Association of REALTORS, “Mr. Internet” wrote a column to help educate membersof the National Association of REALTORS recommending that we incorporate, among other things, “mls” as a term that might help increase our business on the internet. Now, the National Association of REALTORS is the trade organization with some one million plus members that is supposed to work on behalf of real estate professionals, educate REALTORS and protect the consumer, amongst other things. So, an article about internet marketing from Mr. Internet might be considered by many of its members to be something of a standard bearer of reliable information for its members (including me). In other words, it would only be responsible for members of the NAR to take the advice of members of the association.
Many real estate professionals across the country did in fact heed the advice of Mr. Internet and purchased domains that contain the acronym “mls” - short for Multiple Listing Service and not to be confused with Major League Soccer, who happens to own the trademark. Now, it’s important to note that Major League Soccer has never complained - at least to my knowledge of the use of “mls” by real estate professionals.
Enter the National Association of REALTORS again who changed the language of Article 12 of the Code of Ethics which essentially allows for local MLS boards to independently decide whether or not the local members will now be allowed to continue using “mls” in their domains. Now, without getting too deep into search engine marketing, suffice it to say that the age of the websites domain name, or URL, plays an integral part in helping a website rank well for particular terms so if you are forced to lose it, you stand a significant chance of a loss of income and a severe one at that.
Enter Marc Rasmussen, a member of the Sarasota Association of REALTORS. Marc purchased a website, thesarasotamls.com back in 2003. Marc worked tirelessly to become an internet marketing leader in his area and has been ranked number one for Sarasota real estate, sarasota mls and various other search terms for years because of his efforts. This work has paid handsome dividends in the form of business he has been able to generate from his website.
The Sarasota Association of REALTORS has put an end to Marc’s ability to use his website with ethics hearings and a ruling from ICANN so now Marc has had to start over. It seems that the very people (NAR) who should be helping Marc and others like him are the ones who have now put him in the position he is in right now and they are also the very people who recommended the practices Marc employed because of the change in language to Article 12 of the Code of Ethics which now gives local authorities to take away what the National Association of Realtors once explicitly stated was good practice. Should their not at least be a grandfathered in clause for all agents who currently own and operate websites with “mls” in the domain? The relevant language of Article 12 is here:
“1) REALTOR® firm websites shall disclose the firm’s name and state(s) of licensure in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.Websites of REALTORS® and non-member licensees affiliated with a REALTOR® firm shall disclose the firm’s name and that REALTOR®’s or nonmember licensee’s state(s) of licensure in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.
2) The obligation to present a true picture in representations to the public includes information presented, provided or displayed on REALTORS®’ websites. REALTORS® shall use reasonable efforts to ensure that information on their websites is current. When it becomes apparent that information on a REALTOR®’s website is no longer current or accurate, REALTORS® shall promptly take corrective action.
3) REALTORS® intending to share or sell consumer information gathered via the Internet shall disclose that possibility in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.
4) REALTORS® obligation to present a true picture in their advertising and representations to the public includes the URLs and domain names they use, and prohibits REALTORS® from:
a. engaging in deceptive or unauthorized framing of real estate brokerage websites;b. manipulating (e.g. presenting content developed by others) listing content in any way that produces a deceptive or misleading result;c. deceptively using metatags, keywords, or other devices/methods to direct, drive or divert Internet traffic, or to otherwise mislead consumers.”
Marc has had to purchase a new domain to market Sarasota real estate and we here at The Grapevine will certainly do our part to support him by linking to him wherever possible. I’ve written another article about this here and many others have written about this as well. Search the web and you will find it.
Ryan Ward, REALTOR. Atlanta Real Estate - 404.630.3187
Topics: Editorials |
Thank you for the post Ryan. This issue is much larger than me. I have received several calls and emails from people who use a domain name that contains MLS. There are a lot of people watching this case.