NAR and DOJ settle Antitrust suit.

There is a proposed settlement of the 2005 lawsuit against NAR by the Department of Justice surrounding NAR’s IDX/VOW rules. Deborah A. Garza, deputy assistant attorney general for the U.S. Justice Department, today characterized the settlement as "a full success" for the department. "We were able to achieve full relief with respect to the practices we were concerned about," she said. The proposed settlement provides that an MLS "may not prohibit, restrict, or impede a participant from referring registrants to any person or from obtaining a fee for such referral."

The controversy surrounded NAR-adopted policies governing online sharing and display of listings, and the circumstances under which those listings were shared, or sharable, to other real estate professionals. The main beef of the DOJ was NAR rules that required MLS’s to selectively withhold property listings from companies that operate VOW-based search sites that feature a collection of property listings from MLS members.

The settlement proposal provides that the display of listing information on a VOW site "does not require separate permission from the participant whose listings will be available on the VOW," but does provide that individual sellers can choose to block information about their home from display on the Internet.

The proposed settlement will be published in the Federal Register and is subject to a 60-day comment period and a 30-day review by a judge before it is final.