And You Thought Your Web Site was Yours ...
July 18, 2006
5:10 a.m., MT

Don't count on it, folks. Found this at Billy Beck's place, my emphasis in bold:

The Federal Trade Commission today said that a popular real estate website was de facto public property, and that Commission lawyers could suppress the First Amendment rights of the site's owners and dictate future content. Under a proposed order against the Austin Board of Realtors (ABOR), the group's Austinhomesearch.com website will be subject to FTC controls for at least ten years.

The FTC said that ABOR violated the antitrust laws by disallowing Exclusive Agency Listings from the group's website. Under an Exclusive Agency Listing, a property owner pays a broker an upfront fee to serve as his exclusive agent, but the owner may also sell his property without the agent's assistance, in which case the agent receives a reduced or no commission. ABOR's policy only allowed Exclusive Right to Sell listings on its website. These listings give an agent the exclusive right to sell a property and receive a commission within a specified period. ....

[T]he FTC's action was predicated on the view that operators of a public web site have no right to control the content of their sites. Exclusive agency listings could still be published on non-ABOR websites, but the FTC said that ABOR has a legal duty to publish all listings. ....

The FTC is effectively declaring any popular website a public utility, said Skip Oliva, president of the Voluntary Trade Council. ABOR is a private organization, and the First Amendment guarantees its right to free speech and assembly. The FTC's actions are facially unconstitutional.

ABOR did not contest the FTC's charges. Most businesses accused by the FTC of antitrust violations settle without a trial due to the time, expense, and lack of due process rights in FTC proceedings.

The full piece is available at The Voluntary Trade Council.

Another tendril of state kudzu has been unleashed.

Sunni

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