Comments by Compass CEO Robert Reffkin got traction on social media last weekend, taking aim at an updated user agreement from the nation’s largest multiple listing service, California Regional Multiple Listing Service. In an open letter today, CRMLS CEO Art Carter responded to what he called “misinformation.”
Specifically, Reffkin said that a portion of the 10-page agreement gave CRMLS the right to sell agents’ photos.
“Imagine your phone carrier cutting off your service until you agree to let them sell your photos and texts. That’s basically what just happened here.”
Robert Reffkin | Compass
The posts were shared hundreds of times and generated hundreds of comments from agents — many at Compass and others from competing brokerages — who said they agreed with Reffkin. Some said they had no problem with the portion of the agreement that Reffkin highlighted.
“This is not OK. Real estate entrepreneurs, business owners, are being taken advantage of. We gain permission from our sellers to market their listings, and sellers should have choice in how we market their homes,” Ashley Donat, Compass’ national head of coaching, said.
“It should be the same relationship with our MLS. Real estate professionals should have a choice how their listings and content are then distributed and syndicated.”
Several commenters suggested the rules were in place so that CRMLS could sell the listing information to real estate portals like Zillow.
View this post on Instagram
Two days after Inman requested a comment from CRMLS about the posts, CEO Art Carter responded with an open letter to Inman and other media outlets in which he suggested that the posts were “defamatory” and contain “misinformation.”
“Okay, Mr. Reffkin, you got some people’s attention,” Carter wrote. “You may feel like you’ve got us pinned, but the thing is, you’ve yet again ignored or refused to be bothered by some important facts.”
Carter defended the document that CRMLS members were required to sign to gain access to the MLS, known as the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).
Art Carter
“CRMLS’s EULA doesn’t endorse taking control of listings away from agents or brokers or improperly profiting from them,” Carter said. “Instead, it’s [sic] goal is to provide benefits back to the brokerage community for the listing content provided.”
Carter said the updated user agreement didn’t change anything around copyrighted materials or the ability of CRMLS to sell data. The specific language Reffkin pointed out in his posts, Carter said, “has been there for years.”
Instead, he said the updates revolved around enhanced user security requiring multifactor authentication and a new provision ensuring brokers have the right to correct issues that might arise during arbitration.
Carter also included details about what he said was a meeting that Reffkin requested with Carter and CRMLS Vice President Edward Zorn in Fall 2023.
“You spent the better part of an hour discussing topics related to data distribution and the use of listing data. You asked us how we could get the rest of the country to adopt the CRMLS way of handling listings. You praised our ease of access and terms of use,” Carter wrote. “You were frustrated that other MLS entities did things differently and that you had challenges getting complete listing data.
“CRMLS could deliver what Compass needed in the way of data due to the MLS owning the MLS listing record and only because we had the terms in our EULA that you identified in your post,” Carter wrote. “That ownership allows the MLS to open up the use of the data by all members of the MLS in a consistent and fair manner.”
