The term ‘MLS’ professional jargon originally adopted by realtors to save their breath instead of saying the term ‘Multiple Listings Service’.There are NO copyrights or trademarks for this term nor is it more importantly a term invented by the N.A.R. The N.A.R invented the term REALTOR in the nineteen fifty’s. Of course they could not foresee another term being invented by their members that was synonymous with where all of the real estate information/data comes from that prospective buyers could peruse.

It’s not even remotely related to a code of ethics. Money is the only reason the NAR is interested interested in the term MLS. The Term ‘MLS’ is now a $econd tier buyer’s search phase which the NAR wants to regulate. So it took the NAR over 10 years to figure out that they messed up!

It’s all a bunch of sour grapes by a greedy, power hungry association called the NAR, grow up and stop your crying NAR or your past experience with Clayton Anti Trust laws will come back to haunt you. Do the words coercive monopoly mean anything to you!

Well, at least we were talking about it when it happened and not chiming in over a year after the fact…

Dennis said,
>SAR does know what a 301 redirect is since they gained control of thesarasotamls.com today and immediately had it redirected to their website.

Well I think an ethics complaint is due against the Sarasota association of Realtors. They have redirected the domain. This means they are now deliberately deceiving consumers. They are without permission, redirecting anyone who intended to go to Marc’s site. Is that ethical?

This SAR is wrong, period. ICANN got this wrong. There is a legal principal called promissory estoppel. It means if someone acts in good faith based on a second parties assurances the second party can’t later complain.

But you don’t have to know fancy legal terms to know it is wrong to say it is OK to do something, and then later come back and say we changed our minds.

Jay said
>Personally, I think what the SAR did is absolutely criminal.

If the facts the Marc has reported here are true then you are absolutely right.

Ned Carey

Really.

Which would protect consumers better? A website showing MLS information that is operated by a REALTOR or a website run anyone who can rank for the term?

It’s time for the NAR to straighten this mess out and re-amend (not sure that’s a word) Article 12.

My uncle could have a website with “mls” in it, but, as a REALTOR I can’t. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, and MLS is trademarked by this organization – you may have heard of them – Major League Soccer.

What’s next that I can’t use? Homes? IDX? Real Estate? Seriously, this change in the rule hurts members and potentially hurts consumers by not allowing us to compete.

The SAR now ranks #1 for the search term “Marc Rasmussen”.

Yeah, they’ve really protected their membership and the general public.

The whole URL word myth is now exposed. SAR ranks #1 for “Marc Rasmussen” with absolutely no mention of Marc Rasmussen on theie site or in their domain name. Not only has SAR stolen Marc’s URL and hard work, they have stolen his good name!

My guess is that SAR does know what a 301 redirect is since they gained control of thesarasotamls.com today and immediately had it redirected to their website.

My opinion is that SAR opened a can of worms they will regret in the end. My opinion is they will learn a quick lesson in online reputation management, the hard way; How Not To Do It.

While NAR’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice applies to all Realtors, NAR’s board of directors in November 2007 approved an optional policy that Realtor-operated MLSs can choose to adopt that restricts subscribers’ use of “MLS” and related terms.

That optional policy allows — but does not require — MLSs to block the use of “MLS” and “Multiple Listing Service” in subscribers’ Web site addresses, company names, e-mail addresses and other marketing efforts. Several MLSs already had similar policies in place.

Again, how is this optional policy not selective? It is either unethical or it is not. Clearly, not even the ‘affiliated’ Realtor boards are in agreement as to whether this issue is even an issue.

SAR wouldn’t have won the ICANN decision on a state trademark alone.

You know what really stinks about all this?

It is that Marc is found innocent of an ethics violation and his using that finding to defend himself is used against him by SAR to show ICANN that he really is unethical, which was cited in the ICANN decision.

I just have a hard time ascribing malicious intent to either party as their motivation

SAR only went after the one agent who refused to lay down. When he did agree to take the url offline, that wasn’t good enough. They went after the domain. That was punitive, if not malicious.

In fact no Board is allowed to selectively choose the articles of the code that they wish to enforce. Each Association addresses the complaints it receives on a case by case basis, so your statement is probably not accurate- perhaps the San Diego Association has not had complaints regarding this issue, but even if they had, each complaint would be handled individually and decided on the merits of that case.

I’m confused here. I know for a fact that complaints have been filed against agents using “MLS” in their domains in San Diego. The local associations here have claimed that NAR left it up to the local boards to decide whether or not that would be enforced. How is that not selective?

On a side note, thank you for having the courage to engage and make this post.