Anyone mining & selling that data are engaging in a very dodgy practice, and I can see class actions arising from it.

This is just another broken element of the completely plucked real estate industry.

Simply, REA is on-selling agency/vendor data to a third party without the agents’ specified approval.
Without agent/vendor participation, this business model would be particularly disadvantaged. (Especially this new ASX derivatives product!)

Still no word from M McNamara (RPData) ??C’mon, Mike, fair suck of the sav!

Obviously other people here have other primary concerns, and that often centers around the value of the information. I certainly think it has value, but I am of the opinion that when broken down to each agency it is not going to be enough to make a difference. It’s real value lies in the agents having control of their data. Of course I am the first to say that if I worked for REA or RPData I would be fine with the current arrangement naturally.

I don’t think a couple of letters is what it will take to fix it, but its a start at least.

IMHO REA needs to advise agents that they are utilising the clause in their terms and conditions that gives them a “royalty free licence to commercialise, copy, license to other persons

Now I and several others have explained the issues quite calmly and intelligently explained our position. Ok.. may Sal was a little less calm there

Nobody is asking you to agree but you are smart enough to know and understand exactly where we are coming from yet you continue to brush off everything and associate totally different scenarios to the problem. What I can’t understand is why.

Claim it as REA bashing all you want.. your not the first one to say that and you wont be the last I am sure. Whats interesting is the type of people who claim it either work at REA or are on the other side of a discussion or debate and have to resort at the end of it to claiming I am anti-REA when I don’t agree with them. If that is the best argument you have that still does not excuse the issue at hand nor does it make your examples any more relevant.

For the record, a tenant openly, freely and legally agrees to have their details on a Tenancy Database.. They just don’t LIKE it.. There is a big difference and you know it. Just to show you how an example can still remain relevant, I may not like giving the bank all my financial details when I get a loan but I AGREE to it anyway.. They don’t even FORCE me to do it just to get the loan because I know its part of the process involved…

Talk about credit card chips, supermarket trolleys, car dealers, hitwise and websites etc etc etc all you want. Maybe its your “hobby horse” that needs questioning!

What I particularly find humorous is that in this thread you initially called for transparency in property like the stock market, but when I ask for transparency to the agent in what REA and RPData do with our data you don’t want to entertain that. Who was it you said is biased?

Again your examples are just not directly relevant. Supermarkets and credit card companies tracking and analysing their own client data is fine. Thats the same as agents keeping their customer data and doing internal stats. Thats not what is happening here.

Even selling or giving away that data is ok as long as it is all their work they don’t identify the individual customers. If they do, then they need to make sure customers are aware of this and have the option to opt out. Again, the whole collection and transfer of data is not hidden and the company that collects the data (the supermarket and credit card company) decides what to do with it. Thats not the case here by a long shot.

I have no idea what tenant credit checks have with the discussion as again that is fully declared and everyone participating knows and openly approves for that information to be stored in the tenancy databases.

Answer me this somebody… We sort of know they sell it to RPData but who else does REA sell that data to?

Can anybody outside of REA answer that?

Have REA ever notified agents directly that they are feeding their listing data to RPData?

Considering it is our data shouldn’t we know the answer to those question considering we are the ones providing privacy collection notices to our clients of how that data is to be used.

This is not common across many industries!

Does a supermarket record the names of who they sold stuff to, what they sold and passed all of that on? Could you imagine the uproar if a supermarket did that. Does a car dealer? Hitwise do not identify pass the identity of individual browsers to anybody. Honestly, how can you compare the transmission of detailed transaction data that identifies the agent and the client to summary industry information like that.

An apple and an orange might both be in a fruit bowl but they have about as much in common as your examples with the topic at hand.

The property sale is not the agents IP.. but I already stated that in the first paragraph of my last comment. It is a matter of public record, when it hits the government databases Agents notifying before hand is clearly identified as “Agents Advice” in the systems and is obviously sourced from the agents. But other stuff sent to the data companies is not. The owners name, the photographs of the property, the features of the property the marketing text and description of the property are all sent from realestate.com.au to RPData. None of that stuff other than the owners name is recorded by the VG under the law or outside it.

I hope you not going to suggest that the photographs and marketing text the agent created are not their own IP and copyright? Because of some obscure condition in their policy we as the owner of that property give a free license for them to sell it. Whether you want to accept it the fact that this information is sold to RPData and to the public guarantees that it has value.

Does it have enough value to pay the agents, or for them to derive a financial benefit from it, I don’t know as that might be asking to much. If they REA has say 10000 clients and they charge $200,000 for the feed that works out at say $1.66 per agent per month. Even if its $500k the per agent cost is still minimal and I cant see that the numbers involved will be that much that it could effect an agents subscription costs..

But that leads to the real I issue I have with it and thats the issue of transparency both from a legal and ethical standpoint.

Agents should be given the option to opt in or out both at an agency level and at an individual property level. If a property owner asks for their information to be withheld from the property databases as is there right, there is not way to do this at the moment. Agents dont even notify sellers that their information will be stored on a database owned and controlled by a a party totally removed from the transaction.

Can you seriously suggest that every single owner would be ok with this sort of leakage in their private data without any sort of notice?

Is it reasonable? Could they easily and clearly forsee it?

If not, then they have to be notified, but if the agent is not notified that it is taking place who is at fault?

I struggle to see how you cant see the issue. It is not about the money, it is about control of the data. We are not talking about the actual sale data.. we are talking a lot more information. The sale data in terms of the quantity of the digital transmission would represent about 0.5% of the transfer, if that. All the rest of the information is from the agent.

Remember, we give a totally royalty free license for them to do as they see fit. If it was public information why would they need that clause? What is to stop them selling full sales history of one agent to another ??? Nothing, thats what! The insertion of that clause is unfair to the agent.

As to you raising valuers… again whats the relevance..

Firstly… THEY ASK!!! Thats the big difference. We have a choice to give it to them or not.

Secondly, in around 17 years I have never provided a valuer with photos, just the sale information which we both agree will soon be a matter of public record anyway. They have never requested or used photos or any information to identify the buyer or seller….. and even if they did ask and we gave it to them there is one big difference….. we would GIVE it to them…. A fully transparent exchange with all parties agreeing and with knowledge of what is going on.

As far as photos are concerned even if the use of the REA clause was upheld, there is an additional issue of Moral rights. Since 2000 Australia has the issue of Moral Rights with regard to photographs under the Copyright Act. Moral rights are personal legal rights belonging to the creators of copyright works and cannot be transferred, assigned or sold. Someone using copyright work may need to get consent from the creator as well as permission from the
copyright owner. I know I have had to sign as the moral rights holder in several cases. Basicially creators have the right to be attributed for their work and as far as I can work out the REA clause would not cover moral rights. Now one of the reasons that attribution is not required according to the Australian Copyright Council is on the grounds of reasonableness and one of the examples offered is based on the relevant industry practice but given that the use of these photos is not totally transparent that might be a pretty small wall to hide behind. It would be interesting to see how this applies to the matter.