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DEMAND FOR ACTION AGAINST Sarasota Association of Realtors (SAR) Shame on YOU!

By
Real Estate Agent with Askins Realty Group, LLC 0599938

SARJACKING

This is beyond belief. This is cronyism and corruption at it's worst and is flat wrong at best. If SAR does not voluntarily surrender their possession of the URL they essentially Hijacked from fellow Realtor Marc Rasmussen than I feel NAR or the Florida Association of Realtors needs to step in for the good of their collective reputations.

 Please refer to these 2 BLOGS to catch up on this theft of individual achievement by the Sarasota Association of Realtors and the entrenched interests who are now benefiting from literally stealing the achievements of a fellow Sarasota Realtor. Sharp language? How would you like to be Marc. Explain to me how this man can ever feel that he is living in the land of opportunity after what has happened to his business through no fault of his own.

 http://www.buysarasota.com/blog/john-allen/should-i-take-the-sarasota-association-of-realtors-to-icann/comment/

 http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/blogs/morgan-carey/6350/show/

 The moral question is this, is the Realtor association arrayed for the good of the public and all its members or the good of the association big wigs and their own private business interests? That is the legal and moral question that ALL Realtors should be outraged over. Here is a clear case of a Realtor RAISING the standard for on-line website excellence and who has built a brand through thousands of hours of toil and expense only to have his work harvested out from underneath him by the association he is a member of? Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds, but unfortunately this is what is going on.

 The URL that Marc Rasmussen created and worked like the devil to perfect through tens of thousands of dollars of personal expense is now in the possession of SAR through a very questionable ICANN ruling that should have never happened I the first place! And they HAVE already employed this top ranking Google URL to their own use by redirecting it to their website, sarasotarealtors.com, hence stealing the inbound weight of the leads this URL will bring to them without EVER HAVING TO DEVELOP this advantage using a dime of SAR MONEY. I find this an AFFRONT to civil behavior in general and completely unacceptable coming from an association of realtors.

 I vote for Marc Rasmussen and I am appalled about the conduct taken by SAR

 The more I read about this issue SICKER and angrier I get.

Show All Comments Sort:
Shane OnullGorman
Eau Claire Realty, Inc. - Eau Claire, WI
Eau Claire Wisconsin, Real Estate Agent & Realtor- Buy or Sell

I agree. I saw this just a bit ago and think its outrageous. They went straight to ICAAN to cut his jugular. Really lame.

Oct 22, 2008 01:47 PM
Jim Treanor
Treanor Real Estate - Southington, CT
CT RE Broker ABR CDPE CRS GRI

They should have grandfathered his website address since he had it before they made the rule.  I don't remember if it was mentioned in the article but you also cannot have the word "realtor" in your web address either.

Oct 22, 2008 02:05 PM
Mike Askins
Askins Realty Group, LLC - McKinney, TX
Professional Services Free Move-ups or Rebates!

SAR has now completed it's SARJACKING of Realtor Marc Rasmussen's former domain name and it is now redirecting inbound traffic to SAR's website, traffic that Realtor Marc Rasmussen developed at his own time and expense.  

If SAR was upstanding about its position concerning the URL names a member can use, it completely lost any moral ground the second they programed in a redirect of the disputed URL to their own SAR website. The right thing to do in my opinion was to do nothing with the domain.

In my opinion the right thing to have done when all the facts were considered would have been toallow Marc to do a 301 redirect of the old URL to his new URL thus allowing him to at least benefit from whatever traffice might be directed to him. SAR's real intent seems rather obvious now that they are redirecting Marc's traffic to their website. Again if you go back and read the 2 links you will see what this association has done. I think it is questionable at best.

I just can't see how any Realtor Assoication can benefit from this act by SAR especially if this gets really noticed by the press. Someone else said it correctly, NAR and all the Realtor Associations needs to be a PROFESSIONAL association and NOT a SALES association. I just can't imagine how the public is going to gain elevated levels of trust concerning Realtors when they see this. Trust is developed by doing the right thing. 

Oct 25, 2008 03:22 AM