I have been following this situation for some time and just received an update I'll post below via a link. As members of any Realtor Association, we should be concerned about the actions taken against a fellow Realtor that may have future impact on us. In essence, this Realtor got cleared of any ethics violation and then they (Sarasota MLS Board) went after him through ICANN to get him stripped of his quite valuable URL he has had for years, even though it was found insufficient evidence of trademark rights. Below is a recap of an email being circulated.
Morgan Carey, CEO of Real Estate Webmasters, published a blog post documenting what he perceives as predatory behavior exhibited by the Sarasota Association of Realtors against one of their own members and a very well known and respected Realtor, Marc Rasmussen.. Now that this issue is out in the open, we need your support.
The blog post is located here:
http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/blogs/morgan-carey/6350/show/ - should you agree with stance we have taken in this matter, there are several options for suggested action that can be taken to assist / support your fellow Realtor Marc Rasmussen.
It's time somebody stood up to these MLS boards so that no more innocent members can be victimized by this behavior - if we don't stop this now and set a precedence, who knows, perhaps the next person they decide to come after will be you.
Mark's new website is http://www.luxurysarasotarealestate.com
How would you feel if this happened to you as a paying member of the association? Is this really in the best interest of the consumer?
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WOW! What an explosive topic.
I read this with interest on many fronts. WAV Group works with both brokers and MLSs consulting on strategies for online success.
Clearly, the MLS Brand is huge. We saw this in Southern California MLS. When the socialmls.com public facing website launched, they received more than 125,000 uniques - mostly from people guessing socialmls.com (no referrer, direct traffic) or from search engine query with keyword "socalmls."
Clearly this agent did not do anything nefarious. He deployed an excellent strategy and benefitted from it. However, he also clearly infringed upon a registered trademark in using the name. ICANN has been consistant with this ruling, and thankfully so. In fact, a cottage industry has been formed as a result. Many people will buy business name domain names, only to sell them back to the business owner for slightly less than $10,000. It is a remarkable coincidence, it costs $10,000 to file a trademark infringemnet case.