The federal government’s competition bureau says the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) is preventing its agents from setting up what the bureau calls “virtual office websites” which would permit customers to search a full inventory of listings containing all available data on listed properties. How does this happen? Right now, TREB restricts the MLS information that its member agents can give to clients. The 31,000 agents may provide information by hand, mail, fax, or email but they may not give the client access to the MSL information online. According to the competition bureau this is an anti-competitive practice which effectively prevents agents from providing the same MLS listing information to customers via a password-protected website. This prevents agents from setting up “virtual office websites,” which would permit customers to search a full inventory of listings containing all of the available data. The bureau has launched a suit to force TREB to permit full access.
I think the Privacy Bureau should sue the Competition Bureau and make this battle really exciting. A lot of info on a listing is not available for the world to see…for privacy of the seller. ~S