Northwest Living | Bellingham Real Estate Market

A Realtor in Sarasota, Florida is in the midst of a legal battle launched at him by the Sarasota Association of Realtors®, (SAR) where he is an active member, because of the use of “mls” in his website address.

According to Marc, the use of “area mls” in a Realtor’s website address was widely recommended in a 2002 an article written by “Mr Internet” in a publication by the National Association of Realtor’s® (NAR).

Marc Rasmussen, a Sarasota Real Estate Agent, purchased his website address “thesarasotamls” back in 2003 based largely on the advice he read in the article and when marketing real estate on the internet was a new venue for real estate agents.

Over the last five years Mark worked hundreds of hours and spent thousands of dollars creating one of the top Sarasota Real Estate websites. For all his hard work he had achieved high rankings in most internet search engines for Sarasota, Fl.

A recent change in Article 12 of the National Association of Realtors® Code of Ethics, now allows local Realtor® Associations at their sole discretion to determine if their members are permitted to use the term “mls” regardless of how long they have used it and especially with disregard to the recommendation featured in the Mr Internet article.

It should be pointed out that “mls” is not a trademark of any Realtor® Association, instead the trademark for Major League Soccer (MLS).  The public has also come to know mls as a common everyday term for real estate property listings.

Morgan Carey, owner of Real Estate Webmasters and web designer for Marc explains this situation in detail on his blog. Read more on Marc the Realtor® vs the Sarasota Association of Realtors® on REW’s blog. It will be interesting to see what happens in this case and if it sets precedence for MLS’s across the country.

Read more linked articles about this interesting battle over the use of the word mls:

• Inman News - MLS Name Dispute Lands in Court
• Eric Blackwell -  SAR: The Real Cybersquat
• Ryan Ward -  Sarasota Association Slaps one of Their Own
• Judy Orr - Sarsota MLS attacks Its Own Member 

Jerry Campbell | The Muljat Group | Bellingham WA | Bellingham Real Estate