Source: Financial Post

A legal battle is brewing between one of the country’s largest real estate companies and Rogers Communications Inc., the owner of a new website promoting property listings across Canada.

The Financial Post has learned Century 21 Canada is suing Zoocasa Inc., which officially launched last month, for “scraping” information from sites provided by Century 21 brokers and representatives. Sources indicate privately controlled Zoocasa is nearly 100% owned by Rogers.

The move by Rogers, the largest telecommunications company in the country, into the real estate sector could have major repercussions and Century 21’s chief executive Don Lawby says he wants to ensure Zoocasa does not have an unfair competitive advantage.

In a statement of claim that lists both Rogers and Zoocasa as defendants, Century 21 says photographs and descriptions of properties have been taken from listings in British Columbia without permission.

“I am opposed to anybody taking, just independently, scraping data or removing data without permission. And they are going and have gone to sites like ours, it’s our opinion, and they have taken data from our sites and put it on theirs. We have spent millions of dollars and an exorbitant amount of effort to get that data on to our sites,” says Mr. Lawby. “I wouldn’t go to Re/Max’s site and scrape data off it and put it on mine.”

Rogers spokesman Jan Innes said her company has little to say on the issue because “the matter is before the courts. We will defend ourselves as we don’t agree with Century 21’s perspective on this.”

Mr. Lawby said his brokers have asked that their data be removed and Zoocasa has not complied. The statement of claim maintains that by taking the information from Century 21 sites, Zoocasa has infringed on copyright.

Century 21, according to the statement of claim, is also demanding that Zoocasa seek prior permission before providing any hyperlink to any of real estate listings on websites run by its brokers.

With some fanfare, Zoocasa launched in August promising to change “the way Canadians search for homes” and as a stunt included as its featured listings the Rogers Centre, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays who are owned by the telecommunications company.

Saul Colt, Zoocasa’s self-described “head of magic” who runs the marketing side of the site, says there is no intent to compete with the real estate industry which controls about 90% of the market through its Multiple Listing Service.

“We see ourselves as a complimentary site. MLS is the gold standard and the best place to go if you’re looking for pure listings,” says Mr. Colt. “We feel like we’re the best place to go for all the information that goes into your decision process.”

Zoocasa is providing information about such things as the history of the neighborhoods, schools, retailers as well as access to the actual property listings.

Mr. Colt said no data has been taken from the mls.ca or realtor.ca site but the information is gleamed by “scouring the Internet” for listings. “Just like Google, once you get the information we actually kick you out of our site and deliver you to the source of the information. You do the filtering and searching on our site,” he said.

While Zoocasa’s first order of business is to drive revenue through advertising on the site, Mr. Colt said long-term plans call for making money off agents. “We do have plans to introduce a lot of realtor tools, than we can charge for subscription,” he said.

At Century 21, there is little doubt in the minds of officials that the Rogers website is taking dead aim at the real estate industry.

“It’s huge,” said Mr. Lawby, about the competitive threat. “If any company is able to gather data without the co-operation of the owner of the data, then it’s an unfair advantage.” He added that “if somebody like Rogers” can collect information without any expense it will have a commercially worthwhile project and be able to take on the MLS system.

Gary Simonsen, chief operations officer of the Canadian Real Estate Association which controls the rights to MLS system and realtor.ca, said officials did meet with Zoocasa representatives.

Zoocasa officials were told “it’s up to individual boards to promote and advertise their listings,” said Mr. Simonsen. He was clear in his opinion that it would be illegal for anybody to scrape information off the realtor.ca site. Zoocasa and Rogers are not accused of doing that.

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist says while there may some debate about what information you can take from a competitor’s real estate site and post on your own, he doubts any court will listen to an argument banning a hyperlink.

“There have been any number of attempts to invoke requirements to obtain permission in order to link but the courts have been reluctant to uphold that. The whole web is dependent on links,” says Mr. Geist.