{"id":2746,"date":"2008-03-10T21:04:27","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T04:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2746"},"modified":"2008-03-10T22:33:37","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T05:33:37","slug":"nar-and-the-use-of-mls-in-a-url","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2746\/nar-and-the-use-of-mls-in-a-url\/","title":{"rendered":"NAR and the Use of MLS in a URL"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written about this before<\/a>. This is an issue that just isn’t going to go away<\/a>. Like most oppressive rules and laws this bad rule (at least as it is currently interpreted and practiced) was a sincere attempt to solve a problem. Unfortunately, the current rule creates a whole new type of problem. The solution is the new problem.<\/p>\n

Should any misleading or deceitful statement statement be permitted on a website? No and the NAR Code of Ethics already covered that. But this issue – at least as it now stands – is a good example of “an innocent dolphin caught in a tuna net”. The very idea that an NAR committee came up with a restriction for Realtors that our competitors – who are trying to put us out of business – don’t have to follow is just absurd.<\/p>\n

NAR will have no ability whatsoever to stop, inhibit, or prevent anyone BUT Realtors<\/a> from using the term “MLS” in their URL. So why would it be alright to inhibit a Realtor while other companies are using the term and will continue to use the term (both as a meta tag and as part of the URL)?<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

Here is another letter Steve Westmark<\/a> passed along to me.<\/p>\n

From:<\/strong> Jim Lee<\/a><\/p>\n

To:<\/strong> gary@garyashton.com<\/a> ; steve@stevewestmark.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Sent:<\/strong> Friday, February 15, 2008 10:35 AM<\/p>\n

Subject:<\/strong> Fwd: Letter to NAR VP Cliff Niersbach<\/p>\n

Gentlemen, <\/font>Another Realtor friend of mine, Bill Holt who is in the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, has a URL with those troublesome magic letters “MLS” (www.obxMLS.com<\/a>) and is having the same issues we are.<\/font>Fortunately Bill has a member of his board who is on the NAR Professional Standards subcommittee, Policy and Interpretation, or some such name. He has talked with her and another long time member of that subcommittee named Ted Kelly. They both seem to feel that to be in violation of the new COE’s Article 12 that a member’s intent would be very important, i.e. are you trying to pass yourself off as ‘THE’ MLS. Mr. Kelly gave Bill Cliff Niersbach’s name who is some sort of NAR VP to talk with. Bill is sending him Read more<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written about this before. This is an issue that just isn’t going to go away. Like most oppressive rules and laws this bad rule (at least as it is currently interpreted and practiced) was a sincere attempt to solve a problem. Unfortunately, the current rule creates a whole new type of problem. The solution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,10,30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-realty-reality","9":"category-supplanting-the-nar","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8358,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8358\/nar-idx-fubar-rules\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":0},"title":"NAR + IDX = FUBAR Rules","author":"John Rowles","date":"May 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Ryan's earlier post, I have spent the morning digging into the NAR's attempt to label the Google Search Engine a \"scraper\". Clearly, the intent is to stifle Realtor.com's competition. There is no other explanation for a rule that specifically targets SEO by dictating that we cannot put the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":896,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/896\/nar-doj-russ-russell-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":1},"title":"NAR & DOJ – Russ & Russell Part 1","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"January 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Russ Cofano responded: Hi Russell, Happy to add some background here. You ask, \"But aren't the \"anti-competitive policies\" basically who has the right to decide how and where listings will be displayed?\" Kinda. The initial DOJ complaint against NAR revolved around NAR's initial Virtual Office Website (VOW) policy that allowed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5604,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/5604\/nar-responds-to-fsbogate\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":2},"title":"NAR Responds to FSBOGate","author":"Dave Phillips","date":"November 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"With a friend\/partner you trust, but verify.\u00a0 Since Realtor.com is not seen around here as a friend, many of you adopted a new slogan: Don't trust and don't verify.\u00a0 I make it a rule to never believe anything that doesn't seem to make sense.\u00a0 The NAR\/R.com response... NAR, REALTOR.com Set\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":908,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/908\/nar-doj-russ-russell-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":3},"title":"NAR & DOJ – Russ & Russell Part 2","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"January 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Russ Cofano responded: Russell, I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you on this subject. First, my comments should not be taken to mean that I support the DOJ's position and hope that they win. Nor do I necessarily support the NAR position with its rulemaking. As I have said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14593,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14593\/dispatch-from-the-nar-idx-rule-committee-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":4},"title":"Dispatch from the NAR IDX Rule committee Meeting","author":"John Rowles","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sitting in the room @ NAR Mid-Year listening to the IDX Rules Committee trying to get its collective head around the use of IDX data on franchisor web sites, social media, and whether or not price change and days on market can be shown on IDX sites. Its kinda\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8486,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8486\/nar-board-sends-idx-policy-back-to-committee\/","url_meta":{"origin":2746,"position":5},"title":"NAR Board Sends IDX Policy Back to Committee","author":"John Rowles","date":"May 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/speakingofrealestate.blogs.realtor.org\/2009\/05\/16\/nars-idx-rule-changes-need-more-study\/ For a few hours there, it looked like the NAR BOD was actually going to do the right thing. Then, the guy from Indianapolis stands up and says, in effect, \"Instead of doing the right thing, lets send this back to the rules committee so NAR members can enjoy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}