{"id":591,"date":"2006-11-01T07:57:24","date_gmt":"2006-11-01T14:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=591"},"modified":"2007-04-01T09:50:45","modified_gmt":"2007-04-01T16:50:45","slug":"the-zillowcom-shake-down-the-piling-on-begins-and-spencer-tracy-is-nowhere-to-be-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/591\/the-zillowcom-shake-down-the-piling-on-begins-and-spencer-tracy-is-nowhere-to-be-found\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zillow.com shake-down: The piling on begins &#8212; and Spencer Tracy is nowhere to be found . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zillow news since the <i>New York Times<\/i> story broke:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sanjose.bizjournals.com\/sanjose\/stories\/2006\/10\/30\/daily23.html?surround=lfn\" target=\"_blank\">Zillow.com accused of helping predatory lenders<\/a> <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.networkworld.com\/community\/?q=node\/9085\" target=\"_blank\">Zillow.com: So bad it ought to be banned?<\/a> <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.redherring.com\/Article.aspx?a=19476&#038;hed=Zillow+Faces+Minority+Complaint\" target=\"_blank\">Zillow Faces Minority Complaint: Rights watchdog group prepares charge that real estate site undervalues homes of non-whites<\/a> <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/seattlepi.nwsource.com\/local\/6420AP_Zillow_FTC.html\" target=\"_blank\">Zillow.com accused of discrimination in home valuations<\/a> <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.contracostatimes.com\/mld\/cctimes\/15899929.htm\" target=\"_blank\">FTC complaint filed against Zillow: Home-appraisal site is &#8220;intentionally misleading consumers and real estate professionals,&#8221; group says<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are all mainstream news sources, not weblogs, and I omitted the (many, many) duplicates. The <i>Times<\/i> article was picked up by Reuters and echoed far and wide. The AP article, shown here from the <i>Seattle Post-Intelligencer<\/i> will have run in hundreds of newspapers and will have been broadcast in abbreviated form on hundreds more television and radio stations.<\/p>\n<p>Devotees of old black-and-white movies may be thinking that Zillow.com will prevail in court. I invite you to reread those headlines. None of this will <i>ever<\/i> get to a courtroom, and Zillow.com has already lost in the court of public opinion &#8212; the only court this &#8220;issue&#8221; was ever intended to reach.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, the company&#8217;s plan now is to have the meeting with NCRC &#8220;in two weeks.&#8221; Presumably, Zillow.com thinks it is going to prepare itself in that time for a honest, civilized debate. What will happen instead is that the NCRC will leak a few very damaging sound-bites every day, vilifying Zillow.com for a pervasive white-glove racism in its algorithms. It&#8217;s the death by a thousand cuts. By the time the meeting occurs &#8212; which I would expect to be quite a bit sooner than &#8220;in two weeks&#8221; &#8212; Zillow.com will be willing to pay anything to stop the loss of blood.<\/p>\n<p>Entrepreneurs can afford to fight this kind of battle &#8212; even to the edge of doom. Any business with third-party investors will eventually cave to the will of those investors. Zillow.com might still win this if it comes out hard on the attack, demonstrating by a preponderance of widely-publicized evidence that NCRC is nothing but a shake-down outfit. I would love to see that happen, but I don&#8217;t expect it.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Zillow.com will dither, as it is doing now, thinking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/591\/the-zillowcom-shake-down-the-piling-on-begins-and-spencer-tracy-is-nowhere-to-be-found\/#more-591\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zillow news since the New York Times story broke: Zillow.com accused of helping predatory lenders Zillow.com: So bad it ought to be banned? Zillow Faces Minority Complaint: Rights watchdog group prepares charge that real estate site undervalues homes of non-whites Zillow.com accused of discrimination in home valuations FTC complaint filed against Zillow: Home-appraisal site is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[3,4,6,5,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":669,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/669\/the-zillowcom-shake-down-deconstructing-the-ncrc-complaint\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":0},"title":"The Zillow.com shake-down: Deconstructing the NCRC complaint . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The NCRC complaint against Zillow.com was filed 26 days ago. Today we have the first detailing in the public prints of the bogus nature of the charges (subscription required):Absent specific instances of harm, the complaint looks more like a scheme to grab some of Zillow's publicity than a legitimate beef.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Disintermediation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":575,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/575\/zillowcom-shake-down-this-is-the-first-shoe-dropping\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":1},"title":"Zillow.com shake-down: This is the first shoe dropping . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"John Cook, Seattle Post-Intelligencer:Zillow has contacted the NCRC, and the two plan to meet soon, Berenbaum said. He expressed confidence that they can resolve the issues in a way that benefits the entire home valuation industry.Actually, the complaint made me think that Yahoo.com is going to have to cough up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":635,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/635\/avid-avm-aversion-extends-only-to-zillowcom-ncrc-off-shoot-starts-competing-on-line-valuation-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":2},"title":"Avid AVM aversion extends only to Zillow.com: NCRC off-shoot starts competing on-line valuation service . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Curiouser and curiouser. Could it be that NCRC's motive is not to shake-down Zillow.com but to sully its reputation, in advance of going into competition against it? From InmanNews (fingered by Jim Duncan of Real Central VA):Zillow officials say their valuations should also be seen as a starting point for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2664,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2664\/zillowcom-announces-its-sponsorship-of-bloodhoundblog-unchained\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":3},"title":"Zillow.com announces its sponsorship of BloodhoundBlog Unchained","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"BloodhoundBlog has grown up with Zillow.com. We're consistently second or third on a Google search for Zillow.com, and Debunking Zillow.com is one percent or more of our traffic every day. On the other hand, we've also been big boosters of the tools Zillow has built to help sellers, buyers and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blogging&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2885,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2885\/zillowcom-takes-advertising-demographics-to-never-before-seen-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":4},"title":"Zillow.com takes advertising demographics to never-before-seen places","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The other bit of news to come out of Zillow.com is this: The real estate start-up is collecting, deploying and reselling advertising demographics in unique and interesting ways. The vast quantities of demographic information -- income, property values, credit scores -- that will be collected in the new Mortgage Marketplace\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Disintermediation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1652,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1652\/heres-a-question-for-a-zillow-poll-how-long-would-it-take-for-ziprealtycom-to-kill-zillowcom-forevermore-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":591,"position":5},"title":"Here&#8217;s a question for a Zillow poll: How long would it take for ZipRealty.com to kill Zillow.com forevermore dead?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not being morbid. I just don't have the wide-eyed naivete necessary to write for SeekingAlpha. Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, Zillow.com","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Disintermediation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}