Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 10th September 2009
Canada: Century 21 sues property portal
Global estate agency chain, Century 21 is suing property portal Zoocasa for scraping its Canadian real estate listings without permission, reports the National Post.
Century 21 Chief Executive Don Lawby is quoted as saying "I am opposed to anybody taking, just independently, scraping data or removing data without permission…..We have spent millions of dollars and an exorbitant amount of effort to get that data on to our sites."
He then adds "I wouldn't go to Re/Max's site and scrape data off it and put it on mine."
Zoocasa is owned by the largest telecommunications company in Canada. Their marketing chief Saul Colt, describes his role as "head of magic."
There are numerous portals in the world that scrape agent sites without permission. Is it wrong or is there no harm in it? After all, it’s free marketing.
Full story from the
National Post
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User Comments
Don't forget that we live in a country of junk law suits.
However I think Property Portals should understand when real estate agencies revolt against scraping their listings. They want to have control of where the leads go and who gets them. I own a real estate portal http://www.realestatefair.net and I have to answer the same question all the time: "Who has control of where the leads go YOU or ME?" and "How do I know that you don't give or sell these leads to my competitors?" The answer is very clear in my case - you open your account with your user ID and Pass, your e-mail and that's where all lead info goes. However the questions still linger on.
Underline - the whole thing is WHO CONTROLS LEADS.
Sal Antsipenka,
IBR Naples Florida
I would argue that it is not illegal to scrape data and use it to create a real estate search engine. After all, in terms of a legal action what damage can be claimed on the part of the agent who is having their listings scraped? Most real estate search engines work by driving traffic to those sites thus benefiting the agent. Whats the problem?
Ralph Winter,
Consumer
Of course it is wrong. This information is the inventory by which an industry earns its living. It is also their essential tool of the trade.
If a portal is offering a valuable advertising service for free, they will have no trouble getting permission and co-operation in getting the data. Data that is fresh, and correct, by the way.
If they cannot get, or will not be bothered to ask, permission, and cannot be bothered to assure their viewers that they are presenting fresh and accurate data, then they are not serving the real estate industry, they are not serving the consumer, and their disregard for both should not be rewarded nor tolerated.
And as for scraping it off of a portal, that is just theft of work product. All of us in the portal business grapple with the same problems of offering a good solid service on terms the industry can afford, that will still allow us to earn a living.
We set up data feeds, sign contracts, and respect our clients Intellectual Property rights.
This sort of thing gives us all a bad name by association, and could cause a knee jerk reaction in the industry that would set the information business back by ten years.
janet Choynowski,
immobel
scraping sites has always been an illegal activity, datamining is the illegal taking of data.
Any data taken from a website should be with the consent of the site owner.
It is harder to stop people on the internet as the information is publically available.
Se Vende Casa,
Se Vende Casa
