There’s always something to howl about.

Sarasota Association of Realtors – The real Cybersquat

If you are not familiar with the controversy brewing around Marc Rasmussen, here is a great place to start. Morgan has laid the essence of the story out for the world to see. Others are starting to chime in already on it as well.

It boils down NOT to trademark (because MLS is NOT a trademark that NAR owns), but greed and envy from fellow REALTORS over a guy who worked his butt off to get ahead. It boils down to an Association that is run amok. They battle a guy and take him to court and when they finally win, and he redirects the domain, they then go to ICANN and try to win the right to take ownership of it, by claiming his domain is confusing to potential customers and Cybersquatting. And he is now appealling ICANN’s decision that will send his site–and the authority that it has built (his site is dominant in the search engine rankings)–over to his association. When he re-directed the domain, the battle was over. He was no longer “cybersquatting” at that point. He was no longer hurting them, but by them trying to grab his domain, they were trying to take away his asset and livelihood pretty much to make a point.

That is not right. That is a land grab. That is PUNITIVE.

He (Marc Rasmussen) is no different than you or I. He built his website’s authority over a number of years. I have known him for several of those years. And because he had the courage to buck the MLS “supposed trademark that they do not have” issue, he had to fight his own “Association”. Standing up against idiocy. Many of us have had local issues that we stood up for. And yet, this one will cost Marc dearly.

My take? (Glad you asked!) I am TIRED of jealous folks at a local Board of REALTORS using thug tactics (and loopholes brought about by IDIOTIC NAR regulations that should never have been made in the first place) to bring someone who is extraordinarily achieving into line with the rest of their sorry butts. In my world, excellence and hard work is rewarded and not torn down. Even if that hard worker is my competitor. You respect that. You don’t tear it down. It thoroughly makes me ill that he gets pursued to the ends of legal-dom by an “Association of his peers” that is supposed to represent him. Instead they persecute him far beyond “protecting the group”.

It makes me question the legitimacy of that organization when my normal nature is to work from within. I WANT to believe that there is a way to correct this internally and hopefully there will be, but if there is not and if not getting justice for Marc is being “within”, then I want to be “without”. Sad, but true. My own nature is to work from within, but this just makes me want to fight.

I do think most issues can be better changed from within than without (and would much rather work that way), PROVIDED change is possible, but I also have a visceral disgust for meanness, and an Association that will go beyond the pale and take away the assets of its member (apparently to me) solely for the sake of punitively making a point that should have never been made in the first place fits that bill. SAR’s message to Marc Rasmussen: “Be OK with mediocrity. Don’t raise an issue. Don’t strive for excellence. Don’t even follow what industry “experts” (snort) like Mr Internet tell you to do when selecting a domain name. Don’t color outside the lines. If you do, we will bring you back in. Oh and make sure that you get your continuing education in–especially the ethics class.”

Yeah…I think the Sarasota Association of REALTORS Board of Directors could use an ethics class. I’d love to teach it. It would start with “You folks don’t know Cybersquat. You ARE cybersquat.”

Best wishes to Marc on his new Sarasota real estate site.