10 Years Later, NAR discovers the Internet

(Via MLS Tesseract)

This should be interesting...

Below, from the article linked to the title of this post, are four important things that MLS's, brokers, etc. need to make happen by the end of February, as pertaining to the DOJ's mandate that the NAR update their VOW policies.

I bet you a thousand dollars have to read at least one sentence more than once to understand what it is trying to say. Gotta love lawyers!

1. Determine whether to categorize fields or statuses as confidential, recognizing that doing so means that participants cannot disclose them, even orally, to their brokerage customers.
   
2. Ascertain what state law requires for the formation of broker/consumer relationships. Are disclosures required? Is a contract required? An MLS without an understanding of the answer to these questions will not be able to enforce the VOW policy.
   
3. Develop a process for receiving, evaluating, and granting broker/AVP requests for data feeds, recognizing that each broker/salesperson may have multiple VOWs under Policy Section II.7. MLSs should probably have a standard VOW access agreement (permitted under the Policy) or modify their existing IDX access agreements to address VOWs.
   
4. Prepare to provide a persistent download upon participant request. The download must include all non-confidential listing information.