Maybe the NAR is listening after all

Yesterday the NAR MLS Issues Committee, without very much live input in the forum proceeding the official meeting and with no discussion in the official meeting, changed the MLS policy on “scraping” that touched off the recent MIBOR powder keg, changed the policy item to read as:

Policies applicable to Participants’ IDX sites

2. Participants must protect IDX information from misappropriation by employing reasonable efforts to monitor and prevent “scraping” or other unauthorized uses.

This appears to put the issue to rest. Now let’s continue to forge on forward into the late 20th century.

Background on this issue:

This controversy apparantly began brewing a couple of months ago, but was brought to a head with a post in Agent Genius. The excerpt below lays out the issue. The responses are quite interesting.

In the post, Paula Henry wrote:

“Recently, my website was reported for allowing the MLS data on my website to be indexed, which led the Indianapolis Metropolitan Board of REALTORS®, (MIBOR), to issue a cease and desist letter to my broker for both our sites, or they would cut our feed.

Since April 10th, Google can not index the detail pages of the IDX on our websites. Our Title tags can not contain any details about the property (Example #1). The decision affected about 15 other brokers and agents in Indianapolis. While I firmly believe I have not violated any MLS rules, we complied! It’s hard to fight an 800-pound gorilla.”