Russ Cofano responded:
Hi Russell,
Happy to add some background here. You ask, “But aren’t the “anti-competitive policies” basically who has the right to decide how and where listings will be displayed?”
Kinda.
The initial DOJ complaint against NAR revolved around NAR’s initial Virtual Office Website (VOW) policy that allowed brokers to selectively “opt-out” by not allowing certain brokers to display their listings online. This would have allowed a “traditional” broker the right to effectively hand pick the firms that they don’t want to compete with online by eliminating any chance for them to have inventory to show to prospective buyers. From the DOJ’s perspective, the problem was that the under these same MLS rules, that same broker could not prohibit a particular “bricks and mortar” company from showing listings to a buyer who walked in off the street. The distinction being online vs. offline. NAR then amended the VOW rule and replaced it with the new Internet Listing Display (ILD) policy which changed the selective “opt-out” to a blanket “opt-out”. In other words, the broker could not selectively pick which brokers could display their listings online. Either everyone or nobody. Since the ILD policy applies across the board, NAR felt that it eliminated the anti-competitive concerns of the initial VOW policy.At or about the same time, NAR changed its definition of “MLS Participant”. The new rule defines an MLS Participant as a broker who makes offers of compensation to and accepts such offers from other brokers. Prior to the change, an MLS Participant had only to be capable of making and accepting offers of compensation.
This last issue is, I believe, the REAL issue in this case. NAR wants to define who can have access to and display listing information online as brokers who are actively working with buyers and sellers and sharing commissions via the MLS. DOJ believes this is too restrictive and that any licensed broker should be able to have such access. DOJ believes that such restrictions will stifle innovative brokers from assisting consumers in non-traditional ways.
Let’s face it. Most MLSs are powerful entities when it comes to aggregation of Read more
Last Friday, on January 5, our nephew Bryan celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Less than a week earlier, on New Year’s Eve, he wasn’t yet old enough to join in a New Year’s champaign toast at the club where’s he’s played gigs for the past few years. He graduated from high school three Decembers ago, last month he celebrated his second wedding anniversary, and later this month he’ll begin his fourth year in the US Navy, where he plays sax in the 
