Litesand

This article explores the distinct difference between a tech-enabled online brokerages and a media services that operate in the United States residential online real estate sector, specifically, the difference between Compass brokerage and HomeOpenly marketplace.

Compass claims that it “is building the first modern real estate platform, pairing the industry’s top talent with technology to make the search and sell experience intelligent and seamless.” This is not true. Compass is building a residential real estate firm with a website.

In another word, Compass, Inc. is an American licensed real estate broker that utilizes the Internet as a marketing medium with the use of real estate technology. Compass employs more than 25,000 agents (working as independent contractors) who earn a percentage of the selling price and give a percentage of each commission to Compass, consistent with the traditional real estate brokerage business model.

Consistent with the traditional real estate brokerage business model remains a key sentence here.

HomeOpenly offers nothing traditional in online real estate.

HomeOpenly is a highly disruptive online platform and a savings aggregation mechanism designed to bring real estate sector into full transparency on fees and levels of services — also known as genuine open competition between Realtors.

HomeOpenly is a technology media company, nothing less, nothing more. HomeOpenly operates with inputs and outputs of data. This mode of operations is a hallmark of a genuine technology company. The reason for this is simple:

Technology companies deliver revenue from value-added data operations.

Real estate brokers deliver revenue from fees, aka real estate commissions.

These products are nothing alike. Real estate brokers utilize the Internet to promote fees in scale, while technology companies utilize Internet to offer data in scale.

Compass has recently served HomeOpenly not one, but two consecutive notices, with claims that HomeOpenly somehow has violated their trademarks:

https://homeopenly.com/docs/Notice-Infringement-Compass-Trademarks.pdf

https://homeopenly.com/docs/RE-Notice-Infringement-Compass-Trademarks.pdf

https://homeopenly.com/docs/Second-Notice-Infringement-Compass-Trademarks.pdf

https://homeopenly.com/docs/RE-Second-Notice-Infringement-Compass-Trademarks.pdf

HomeOpenly cannot possibly violate Compass trademarks simply because we operate in completely different spheres.

HomeOpenly is an innovative and young internet company that designs, builds, and maintains a series of online marketplace solutions with a focus on a home search, automated valuation modeling (AVM), homebuyer’s and seller’s representation services, mortgage origination, refinance, home insurance, renovation, design, staging, home inspections, home security, moving, home maintenance, title, escrow, cash offer stand-in programs, home warranty, and other real estate products and services.

In another word, HomeOpenly aggregates services and savings fulfilled by independent Realtors who choose to use the platform to advertise competitive savings.

Compass, on the other hand, provides real estate sales management; real estate brokerage; real estate consultation; real estate listing; real estate valuation services; providing real estate listings and real estate information via the internet; real estate title insurance underwriting services; real estate escrow services; real estate lending services; financing and loan services; mortgage lending, financing, planning, brokerage, and refinancing services; insurance services, namely, underwriting compensation, casualty, errors and omissions, liability, accident, and business insurance; real estate services, namely, real estate agency and acquisition services in the field of residential and commercial real estate; housing services, namely, real estate agency and acquisition services in the field of residential and commercial real estate; real estate agency and acquisition services in the field of residential and commercial real estate.

In another word, Compass is a licensed real estate broker, licensed to do business as Compass RE in Delaware, Idaho, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, Compass Real Estate in Washington, DC, Wyoming and Idaho, Compass Realty Group in Missouri and Kansas, and Compass South Carolina LLC in South Carolina. California License # 01991628, 1527235, 1527365, 1356742, 1443761, 1997075, 1935359, 1961027, 1842987, 1869607, 1866771, 1527205, 1079009, 1272467.

Any allegations of “unauthorized” use of Compass trademark by HomeOpenly are false. The use is authorized by the Compass agents who use the platform to promote their service. The location of the trademark is used to identify Compass agents’ services, not HomeOpenly.

HomeOpenly is a genuine online marketplace and we are allowed to properly identify services of independent Realtors, as such. There are a number of places on HomeOpenly platform where Compass trademarks are displayed, and, absolutely in all these cases, the displays are used to identify and promote select Compass agents.

Antitrust Claims by HomeOpenly vs Compass

Thousands of unethical Compass agents are currently in broker-to-broker collusion via referral fee schemes, some or all, as following:

Zillow Flex Program and Zillow 360

Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity)

Redfin Partner Agent Program

Opendoor Partner Agent Program

Rocket Homes

mellohome

HomeLight

UpNest

Clever Real Estate

Sold

Landed

LemonBrew

OJO.com (Digs and Movoto)

Xome

Better Real Estate

Tomo Brokerage (hellotomo)

Blend Realty

IdealAgent

and similarly situated “shell” real estate brokerages.

This practice violates Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, RESPA (12 U.S.C. 2607) Section 8, as well as fair advertising and state antitrust and consumer protection laws currently ratified and enforced in connection with broker-to-broker market allocation, consumer allocation, false advertising, unlawful kickbacks, wire fraud, and price-fixing practices.

Compass agents who participate in these hub-and-spoke collusion schemes do so to earn uncompetitive and overpriced commissions, harm consumers as a class, harm legitimate and honest Realtors as a class, and harm HomeOpenly platform as a result.

Compass brokerage itself admits that “actions by our agents are our actions” and as a licensed broker of record in these kickbacks-driven and price-fixed schemes, Compass brokerage unlawfully profits from broker-to-broker collusion.

The resolution to this dilemma is uncertain

Whenever a mega-rounds SoftBank puppet platform, such as Compass, sends two consecutive threats to a self-funded startup, the battle emerges of not just right vs wrong, but big vs small.

Compass, obviously, has resources to smash HomeOpenly with an unlawful SLAPP, force it to remove Compass agents from the platform so that none of them are able to compete for consumers with genuine savings.

However, this is exactly where antitrust laws come into play. Does Compass really fear HomeOpenly’s Open Marketplace(tm)? Yes, it does, because HomeOpenly is built on transparency, and not kickbacks. HomeOpenly is a legitimate technology services, unlike Compass.

Compass, on the other hand, has a big antitrust problem it cannot face, or even acknowledge — some Compass agents are in an open collusion with “shell” or “sham” paper brokers that unlawfully organize independent Realtors into networks in an effort to collect kickbacks from consumers’ real estate transactions.

Consumer Federation of America (CFA) report “Does Transaction Brokerage in Florida Serve the Interest of Home Buyers and Sellers?” and the associated Inman article are factually incorrect.

“All four of the MLSs have data fields where listing agents state how much they’re offering buyer brokers based on agency status. In virtually all of the sales with listed compensation — 98 percent — listing brokers offered the same compensation to transaction brokers that they did to single agents, typically either 2.5 percent or 3 percent, according to the report. The compensation offered only differed in 24 of the 2,000 sales examined. “Transaction brokers should be receiving lower compensation than single agents because these brokers have fewer legal responsibilities and less liability,” CFA said.”

CFA does not know what any of these brokers and agents were actually paid in compensation, it only knows the amount of BAC (Buyer Agent Commissions, typically offered at 2.5 percent or 3 percent) that was offered on the MLS in this study.

The State of Florida law allows buyers to negotiate a rebate with their broker from the BAC amount received. This means that each agent competes for clients by offering legitimate rebates from the buyer agent commissions, something that CFA, knowingly or unknowingly, fails to account for.

Rebates currently are prohibited by law, however, in ten states: Alabama; Alaska; Kansas; Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; New Jersey; North Dakota; Oklahoma; and Oregon. In addition, Iowa prohibits rebates when the customer uses the services of two or more brokers during a real estate transaction.

However, there are commission price-fixing schemes that currently operate in Florida as well, such as:

Opcity ReadyConnect aka Realtor

Redfin Partner Program

UpNest

Tomo Brokerage

Opendoor Brokerage Partner Agents Program

Clever Real Estate aka listwithclever

Better Real Estate Partner Agent Program

Blend Realty

mellohome aka loanDepot

Xome aka Mr. Cooper

IdealAgent

as well as a number of other similarly-situated scams

These schemes operate by price fixing commissions of independent real estate professionals as a way to earn blanket referral fees. These schemes blatantly “dangle” price-fixed uncompetitive home buyer rebates before consumers while enriching themselves with kickbacks.

Otherwise, broker commissions are not fixed in Florida and consumers can and should negotiate savings with their agents based on the level of service.

Nothing prevents consumers from negotiating a competitive buyer rebate in Florida from the BAC amount offered to the buyer agent on the MLS, unless a broker collusion and commission kickbacks are involved.

On the subject of growing problem of price-fixing and kickbacks, News Corporation Reports Second Quarter Results for Fiscal 2022 reads: “The referral model benefited from record average home values and higher referral fees, partially offset by lower transaction volume. The referral model generated approximately 32% of total Move revenues in the quarter.”

Opcity is not a legitimate real estate broker, but a sham Texas brokerage that organizes independent Realtors into a collusion hub-and-spoke network and sets blanket rebates for them (all rebates in the Opcity scam are fixed at the same amount for every broker in the scheme, a telltale of price fixing.)

Under the law, price-fixing and bid rigging schemes are per se violations of the Sherman Act. This means that where such a collusive scheme has been established, it cannot be justified under the law by arguments or evidence that, for example, the agreed-upon prices were reasonable, the agreement was necessary to prevent or eliminate price cutting or ruinous competition, or the conspirators were merely trying to make sure that each got a fair share of the market.

This means that Move, Inc, the legal owner of Opcity scam, cannot argue in federal court that the “Client Rewards” rebates are benefits to consumers, since they are price-fixed by the “hub” in order to eliminate competition between the “spokes.”

The “32% of total Move” “referral” revenue is plain wire fraud built on the basis of consumer allocation, price fixing, and unlawful kickbacks between licensed real estate brokers.

Price fixing is a felony everywhere in the US, and so is the act of administering it over the Internet.

The U.S. Department of Justice wire fraud statute (18 U.S.C. 1343) cites these four elements of wire fraud:

(1) The defendant created or participated in a scheme to defraud another out of money or property
(2) The defendant did so with the intent to defraud
(3) It was reasonably foreseeable that the defendant would use wire communications
(4) The defendant did, in fact, use interstate wire communications

Opcity ReadyConnect scheme meets all four of these definitions, as a matter of fact.

Wendy Gilch, founder of Selling Later, offers one of the most interesting perspectives on deception taking place on the Internet in online real estate sector.

“While viewing properties on Opendoor (one of the biggest ibuyers in the United States), we noticed that homes sold directly by Opendoor (homes they purchased recently and relisted) left out sales history in their listing. Specifically, the sales history that included how much Opendoor paid for the home a month or two prior.”

The way consumers typically search for homes is on Google where companies compete for placement of real estate references against a specific address (such as the one mentioned in her article, located at 9330 Hampshire Park Dr Hampshire, Tampa, FL 33647) but what do these companies typically attribute to these web references?

The quality of this information says a lot about a specific real estate model.

Opendoor Brokerage, for example, hides recent home sale history information. This particular home was sold to Opendoor for $488,900 on November 12, 2021, now up for sale at $606,000, but the $488,900 figure is omitted from this listing (likely on purpose) so that the new buyer doesn’t see this massive price difference.

Opendoor Brokerage, further, price fixes rebates for “Opendoor Partner Agents” (random third-party brokerages) at 1% (or $6,060 in this case,) so that it can collect a massive kickback from the transaction. Price fixing is a felony in the United States.

On the open market, for example, for that same home, a home buyer can receive up to $9,163 commission refund according to my platform if the home is purchased for $610,900

In summary, Opendoor Brokerage listings hide information from buyers about past sales history in order to deceive them, the company blatantly violates Sherman Antitrust Act, RESPA, FTC Act, and a number of other fair advertising regulations when it price fixes services of its direct competitors via the Internet.

This is commonly referred to as wire fraud.

#realestate #advertising #antitrust

From FTC/DOJ December Workshop December 7, 2021

Marshall Steinbaum:

Sure. Yes. I was delighted to have John bring up the subject of gas stations, because they’re one of my favorite things to talk about in antitrust, and in particular, the case US Richfield oil from 1951, which concerns the resale price maintenance and exclusive dealing of contracts that a dominant oil refinery imposed on gas stations.

Marshall Steinbaum:

And in the ruling on that case, the judge said very explicitly, these gas station proprietors are not employees. They are independent business men, in the lingo of that era, and therefore they have the right to operate independently of these coercive contracts employed by the dominant oil refiner. That exact jurisprudence is at the heart of… Or I should say there be a repealing, the overturning of that jurisprudence is at the heart of the gig economy. And also explains why… The example that John was mentioning where you have two gas stations on opposite corners agreeing to fix prices, that’s illegal.

Marshall Steinbaum:

They decide to merge, or maybe we do catch that under our merger review process, but they just both decide to affiliate with the same oil refiner, and fixed prices that way. Almost no question. They’re not going to be targeted by existing antitrust law, and that goes very strongly in the case of the gig economy as well. You have a business model that depends almost entirely on the vertical restraints that a dominant platform imposes on supposedly independent contractors operating on their platform that are engaging in bilateral commerce with customers to which the platform’s not a party. Oh, but the platform actually sets prices for that commerce. And it does so in such a way that the drivers not employ steering methods in order to direct customers to platforms that take a lower share of what they pay by charging lower prices.

Marshall Steinbaum:

So in the… But [for a] world, Uber drivers or any drivers for any ride share platform, would be able to set lower prices on platforms that have a lower take rate, and thus enhance platform competition in the ride share market. Recently, there was an antitrust claim by a sidecar former competitor of Uber that entered the market in California, and their business strategy was basically to offer better terms to drivers.

Marshall Steinbaum:

Uber drove them out of the market using predatory pricing, using tortious interference, they submitted all sorts of fraudulent ride requests to the platform in order to prevent sidecar from servicing their customers. That succeeded, that strategy by… That monopolization strategy by Uber succeeded in gaining control of the market. The motion, or the antitrust claim by sidecar, survived the motion to dismiss, and now that case has been settled, but that speaks to the counterfactual of healthy platform competition, and the degree to which the vertical restraints that have been immunized from antitrust liability by the current antitrust regime are behind that absence of platform competition.

Marshall Steinbaum:

So, as I said, direct price fixing, I mean, John himself said, the Supreme evil basically at antitrust is price fixing well, [richer] companies do it all the time. That also pertains to non-linear bonus based pay. So these are basically incentives for the drivers to accept as many rides as possible from a given platform. And then they get a lump sum, but that reduces their labor supply elasticity, this would be the platform on any one ride that can push down, pay and force them to accept rides that are less advantageous to them.

Marshall Steinbaum:

There’s minimum acceptance rates. So all of what I’m saying is basically the sort of propaganda that you hear from gig economy labor platforms is, ‘Oh, the drivers love flexibility. So they shouldn’t be employees.’ Well, the platforms do not provide flexibility. What they provide is control in the absence of fulfilling their obligations as employers, I should also mention, I was very glad to hear Chair Khan on her opening remarks yesterday, refer to UDAP claims unfair and deceptive acts and practices as potentials, having got competitive significance.

Marshall Steinbaum:

And she referred to the gig economy where, as we’ve seen over and over again, including in the sidecar example, I previously referred to, you’ve got a deception and unfair practices used to monopolize a market. And then you just basically sit back and cash out. And so those UDAP claims essentially are components of the monopolization of the market. That’s also the case. I mean, even on going now in the gig economy, again to speak to this actual absence of flexibility and autonomy on the part of drivers.

Marshall Steinbaum:

They don’t get told the destinations of the ride before they accept them. They don’t get told the fair they’re going to be paid before they accept or reject them. The premise of the idea that the drivers are correctly classified as independent contract, is that they have the autonomy to accept or reject the rides that are offered to them on the platform. And that is just functionally, not the case in practice.

Marshall Steinbaum:

So in summary, I would say that a crucial component of closing the sort of gray area that writes a broad boundary of the firm when it comes to antitrust through the use of vertical restraints, versus a narrow drawing of firm boundaries when it comes to labor law and obligations, as well as sectoral regulation. That gray area of basically the absence of any part source of liability from all of these areas of law is what enables the gig economy to exist. And a crucial component of improving the livelihood of workers within the gig economy is to close down that gray area. And that should be an enforcement priority of the federal agencies and particular, the agencies that have experienced litigating the Sherman act to partly address of gig economy work, and its substandard aspects.

The short answer is no. The only way to compete with Uber is to offer an alternative price-fixing platform, such as Lyft, or DoorDash. In order to build a better Uber, the Uber itself must first cease to exist. A platform, such as Sidecar, will likely settle with Uber when pressing claims for damages subject to Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and unfair advertising claims.

It is the job of the government (US-DOJ and US-FTC) to prosecute Uber on price fixing charges, where the price-fixing scheme is simply unable to pay off the Plaintiff.

“If you have somebody who’s faster than you are, you have to trap him somehow so that he can’t use his superiority, whatever it is.”

Some of the more interesting #startups are able to create new tactical formations to solve big problems against superior incumbents.

At the onset of WWII aerial combat, a V-formation was a “standard” flying principle where a leader was surrounded by two inexperienced pilots on either side. This, in theory, works to protect the leader from an attack from both sides, but in practice makes for a cumbersome balance — two inexperienced pilots flying behind one seasoned.

On the other hand, two-by-two formation allows for two experienced pilots to lead two inexperienced; it is largely superior.

“For years the formation we flew with, three-plane sections, a leader and two wingmen, irked me. If you’re going to fight and do radical turns, this was an unwieldy formation. It was obvious that if we were going to be able to do something sudden to fool an enemy, we ought to throw away one of those planes and just have a two-plane section, which is what I did. At that time, everybody was flying three-plane sections, both in our country and Europe.”

An ability for a startup to break the status quo does not necessarily mean having superior equipment, but it does require one to build innovative defensible tactics and to scale them against a problem one is looking to solve within their market.

An ability to build a superior tactical formation within any TAM and say: “You attack from any direction you want.” That’s the beauty of building #startups that can later be transformed into defensible enterprises, rather than #gigeconomy enterprises, or #crypto schemes, such as Uber and Coinbase, that seek to profit from breaking one federal law or another.

The Schema definition of “priceRange” is “the average price of products or services this business offers” where the value must be expressed as text.

One of the main benefits of running a transparent media company is an ability to comply with Schema standards for pretty much any type of content before it is published. I often refer to this as the basis for correct information — if it can be defined in accordance with Schema correctly, chances are the information is correct, and valuable in some way.

This is the primary basis for reliable and unbiased information published in the Residential Real Estate Directory (RRED)

This is what one would typically include as “priceRange” for a Review, such as a Restaurant, or a Book Store:

$ = inexpensive
$$ = moderate
$$$ = expensive
$$$$ = very expensive
$$$$$ = if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it

I don’t like these references for Real Estate Companies for three reasons. (1) pricing for services is often variable (2) each service often proposes a value (or lack of) beyond simply pricing (3) some services operate by means of hidden fees and kickbacks, making the $ to $$$$$ system unreliable.

I am currently looking for feedback form the real estate sector community and consumer advocates to implement a higher level system that focuses on the type of fees, rather than the $ amounts. This is what I have been able to compile thus far:

“priceRange”:”Savings”
“priceRange”:”Kickbacks”
“priceRange”:”Cash Offers”
“priceRange”:”Flat Fees”
“priceRange”:”Set Fees”
“priceRange”:”Mixed Fees”

Where the following list of companies offer:

Door.com — Flat Fees
Flyhomes — Savings
Home Bay — Flat Fees
Homie — Flat Fees
Jovio — Flat Fees
Prevu — Savings
Savvy Lane — Flat Fees
SimpleShowing — Flat Fees
TRELORA — Flat Fees
Yoreevo — Savings
Faira — Flat Fees
Houwzer — Flat Fees
Redefy — Flat Fees
Ribbon — Set Fees
Surefield — Savings
Unlocked Real Estate — Savings
Aalto — Savings
Landis — Set Fees
Open Listings — Mixed Fees
Reali — Savings
Redfin — Mixed Fees
REX Real Estate — Savings
Torii Homes — Mixed Fees
Enkasa Homes — Mixed Fees
HomeLight — Kickbacks
HomeVestors — Cash Offers
Landed — Kickbacks
Offerpad — Cash Offers
OJO Labs — Kickbacks
Opendoor — Cash Offers
Orchard — Mixed Fees
RedfinNow — Cash Offers
Sold.com — Kickbacks
Trulia — Mixed Fees
Xome — Kickbacks
Zillow — Mixed Fees
Better.com Real Estate — Kickbacks
Blend Realty — Kickbacks
Clever Real Estate — Kickbacks
LemonBrew — Kickbacks
mellohome — Kickbacks
NAEBA — Kickbacks
Nobul — Kickbacks
Opendoor Brokerage — Kickbacks
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) — Kickbacks
Rocket Homes — Kickbacks
Tomo — Kickbacks
Transactly — Mixed Fees
UpNest — Kickbacks
Zillow Flex Program — Kickbacks
Zillow Offers — Cash Offers

(1) Would this make sense to an average consumer?

(2) Any way to expand/improve these categories?

#realestate #schema

“Alesia Haas said her firm believes that blockchain tokens are not securities but rather digital property or a way to record ownership.”

It is a violation of federal law for individuals, or organizations to create private coin or currency systems to compete with the official coinage and currency of the United States.

Sorry, Alesia, your form, Coinbase, flat out, engages in wire fraud.

All alternative currency systems are illegal to operate in the United States, nothing will change this. Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution delegates to US Congress the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof.

If #bitcoin tokens were merely equivalent to digital property, we wouldn’t be having a hearing about it at the United States Capitol.

#Bitcoin is a pirate currency, it cannot possibly be regulated, or become legally compliant with the US law.

#digitalcurrency #alternativecurrency #coinageact

Kristin Smith “Open blockchain networks run on open-source software, meaning the government couldn’t enforce a ban on digital assets without shutting down the entire internet.”

False. The United States Congress has the power and means to enforce the ban on all alternative currencies.

(1) The “Power” element. Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution delegates to Congress the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof. This power was delegated to Congress to establish and preserve a uniform standard of value and to insure a singular monetary system for all purchases and debts in the United States, public and private. Along with the power to coin money, the United States Congress has the concurrent power to restrain the circulation of money which is not issued under its authority to protect and preserve the constitutional currency for the benefit of all citizens of the nation. It is a violation of federal law for individuals, or organizations to create private coin or currency systems to compete with the official coinage and currency of the United States.

(2) The “Means” element. Cryptocurrency exchanges are an integral part of the alternative currency systems, such as #Bitcoin. Crypto exchanges registered in the United States, therefore, operate in a violation of the federal law. Crypto exchanges do have real owners, are real established corporate entities (ex. Coinbase operates under the Coinbase Global, Inc. registered in a State of Delaware) and do have rights and obligations (as Corporations or individuals) to abide by the federal law and are within the jurisdictions of all federal courts in the United States. A Criminal Summons can be served onto Coinbase entity and its founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at any time.

Banning the crypto exchanges worldwide is at a different level, that, at least, requires 194 member countries to empower ICPO-INTERPOL with a mandate to shut down exchanges operating within their jurisdictions.

The United States law is workable and wise, it is, certainly, not up for a debate. Any efforts to undermine the legitimate currency of the United States via the Internet are a form of domestic terrorism, wire fraud, and counterfeiting.

#cryptocurrency #currency

David McLaughlin vs HomeLight is an interesting legal action, for some reason, was incorrectly filed under the 15 U.S.C. § 1125 (Lanham Act claim for false advertising.) I randomly stumbled on this case recently, doing my research.

This case was correctly dismissed because the damages under the Lanham Act are not a substitute for damages under the Sherman Act.

Today, every honest #Realtor in the US, legitimate #marketplaces, and #consumers hold claims, valued in tens of billions USD, against every single “shell” entity that operates by means of broker-to-broker collusion.

HomeLight is just the tip of the iceberg.

These claims must be filed under a different law, however:
15 U.S.C. §1 — Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal;
12 U.S.C. §2607 — Prohibition against kickbacks and unearned fees;
12 C.F.R. §1024.14 — Prohibition against kickbacks and unearned fees;
Business and Professions Code §17200 et seq.
15 U.S.C. §45 — Unfair methods of competition unlawful.

etc.

HomeLight is one of the largest broker-to-broker collusion scams in the modern history of real estate, conducted across all 50 states and Washington, DC with the use of the Internet. Wire fraud is a federal crime that involves any scheme to defraud another person or party by means of electronic communication. This scam is taking place in the middle of the housing affordability crisis and it deprives consumers of tens of thousands in properly negotiated commissions on each home sale or a home purchase conducted via HomeLight “shell” brokerage. In the HomeLight scam, tens of thousands of Realtors no longer compete for consumers with savings, instead, they compete for HomeLight’s “black box” placement with tens of thousands in pre-negotiated kickbacks on a “blanket” agreement basis.

#antitrust #realestate #kickbacks #collusion #proptech #advertisinglaw #LanhamAct #UCL #ShermanAct #FTCAct U.S. Department of Justice Federal Trade Commission Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Every media company is in competition with Google. One shouldn’t be selling anything through their competitors, to begin with.

“Advertisers that choose this platform do so because it makes the process of buying digital advertising easy and effective,” says Sissie Hsiao

No, advertisers choose this platform because it is easier for a media service to collude with Google than to build a competing advertising platform. All agreements to restrain free trade have very dull and common reasons behind them — low standards, slow growth, playing it safe, excuses, etc.

Media services can (and are wise to) buy some technology from Google, such as the services offered by Google Cloud, but we cannot become vassals to the Big Five when it comes to our revenue.

#antitrust #ecommerce #bigtech #onlineadvertising #politicsandlaw #freespeech #digitaladvertising