US listing data rules: the 2008 VOW judgment and what followed

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A home for sale in the United States usually appears on many websites at once: the listing broker's, those of competing brokerages, and the large portals. None of that happens by accident. The listing sits first in a multiple listing service, or MLS, and a set of written policies decides which broker may copy it onto which screen, which fields travel with it, how fresh the copy must be and what the seller can keep back. One of those policies was not written freely by the trade. It was attached to a federal court judgment.

This guide follows the rules in the order they were made: what an MLS is, the antitrust case the Department of Justice brought against the National Association of Realtors, the policy on virtual office websites (VOWs) that the 2008 final judgment imposed, and two later changes, the end of compensation offers in MLS listings in August 2024 and the delayed marketing option of March 2025. It also says plainly where the documents read for it stop, above all on Internet Data Exchange, or IDX. These are national policies of a trade association and the terms of one judgment. The rules a broker actually works under are those of the local MLS, and state law may add its own.

Modified VOW Policy, Exhibit A to the final judgment in United States v. National Association of Realtors, filed 18 November 2008.

What a multiple listing service is

The National Association of Realtors does not define the MLS in a single sentence. Its Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy, in the 2025 edition, describes it in Part One, Section 1 through a series of functions. An MLS is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information. It is a means of enhancing cooperation among participants. And it is a means by which information is accumulated and disseminated so that authorised participants can prepare appraisals.

Three ideas sit in that description. The MLS is a shared database, fed by the brokers who take listings. It exists so that brokers can work together on each other's listings. And the accumulated record is itself a working tool. The people who use it are called participants, a term the association defines in its policy, and the 2008 judgment refers to that definition as Statement 7.9.

The handbook also explains how its own rules change. According to the 2025 edition, changes to the handbook become effective on 1 January of the year following their approval by the association's Board of Directors, and local associations then have 60 days from that effective date to adopt them. That is the general rule. As the later sections show, some of the most important changes to listing display did not wait for a 1 January: they came from a court, or carried their own dates.

The case the Department of Justice brought

The policy on virtual office websites has an unusual origin. The Department of Justice sued the National Association of Realtors in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in civil action number 05 C 5140. The amended complaint was filed on 4 October 2005. According to the final judgment published by the Department's Antitrust Division, the government alleged that the association's policies restrained competition from innovative brokers, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The association did not admit liability.

Two of the association's own policies were at the centre of the case, and the judgment defines both. The first is the VOW Policy, adopted on or about 17 May 2003. The second is the Internet Listing Display policy, which the judgment shortens to ILD Policy, adopted on or about 31 August 2005. The judgment also defines the thing they regulated. A VOW is a website, or a feature of a website, through which a broker is capable of providing brokerage services to consumers with whom the broker has first established a broker-consumer relationship.

The final judgment carries a filing date of 18 November 2008 and was before Judge Matthew F. Kennelly. Its Section X sets its term at ten years from the date of entry. The copy published by the Department of Justice does not show the date of entry, so the exact day on which the term ended cannot be given from that document. This matters for a reader today, and the point comes back at the end of this guide: the judgment explains where the VOW rules came from, and the text below is the policy as it stood in the judgment.

What the judgment prohibited and ordered

Section IV of the judgment lists what the association may not do. It may not adopt, maintain or enforce any rule or practice that prohibits a broker from using a VOW, or that restricts a broker from providing through a VOW all the listing information it can provide to customers by other methods. It may not unreasonably disadvantage or discriminate against a broker's use of a VOW. It may not restrict the referral of customers obtained through a VOW, or set a price for such referrals. It may not impose VOW-related fees above the reasonably estimated actual costs, or discriminate in those fees. And it may not keep any rule that is inconsistent with the Modified VOW Policy, the text attached to the judgment as Exhibit A.

The principle behind the list is parity. Whatever a broker may hand to a client across a desk, the broker may also deliver through a website. The judgment does not make the association abandon rules altogether: Section VI lets it keep generally applicable rules that do not unreasonably restrict the methods of delivery.

Section V then set a timetable, measured from the entry of the judgment.

The judgment also dealt with boards that did not comply. If the association found non-compliance, it had to issue a written directive within 30 days. If a board or MLS refused, the association had to deny it insurance coverage and notify the Department of Justice. Any change to the Modified VOW Policy required the Department's prior written approval or an order of the court. On membership of the MLS itself, Section VI let the association keep its definition of an MLS participant, but required it to direct member boards not to suspend or expel brokers for failing that definition until 27 May 2009.

What a VOW is, and who may run one

Exhibit A turns the principle into operating rules. A VOW, in Section I of the Modified VOW Policy, is a participant's website, or a feature of it, through which the participant can provide real estate brokerage services to consumers with whom it has first established a broker-consumer relationship as defined by state law, and where the consumer can search MLS data under the participant's oversight and supervision.

Several kinds of people may stand behind such a site. The participant may run it. With the participant's consent, a non-principal broker or sales licensee affiliated with the participant may run one too, and it remains under the participant's supervision. And the participant may designate an Affiliated VOW Partner, or AVP, to operate the VOW on its behalf. A participant may have more than one VOW.

Two points in Section I shape everything that follows. First, a participant does not need separate permission from the listing broker to display that broker's listings on a VOW. Second, a VOW may show only data from MLSs in which the participant has participatory rights. A firm with offices in several MLSs may run a master site that links to the VOW of each. The policy also notes that the same site may offer other features, and it names IDX as one of them: a VOW and an IDX display can live on one website.

Registration: the steps before a consumer sees listings

The word "office" in virtual office website is meant literally. The site is treated as a place where a broker serves its own clients, so a visitor must become a client, in the sense state law gives the word, before the listings open. Section II of the Modified VOW Policy calls that visitor a registrant and sets out what the participant must do.

The terms of use have a minimum content. The registrant acknowledges entering into a lawful consumer-broker relationship with the participant. The data is for personal, non-commercial use. The registrant has a bona fide interest in buying, selling or leasing property of the type offered on the site. The registrant will not copy or redistribute the data, except in connection with considering the purchase or sale of a particular property. And the registrant acknowledges the MLS's ownership of, and copyright in, its database. The terms must also authorise the MLS and other participants to access the VOW to check compliance and to monitor how their listings are displayed.

What the terms may not do matters as much. They may not impose a financial obligation on the registrant, and they may not create a representation agreement. If a participant wants either, the policy requires a separate agreement, prominently labelled, that cannot be accepted by a mouse click alone.

Records follow. The participant keeps each registrant's name, email address, username and current password for not less than 180 days after the password expires, and hands them to the MLS, with any required audit trail, if the MLS has reason to believe security was breached or a rule broken. An MLS may fix how long a password is valid, but not at less than 90 days. As a worked example, assume an MLS sets the validity at the 90-day minimum and a registrant never renews. The password expires on day 90, and the records must be kept until at least day 270, which is 90 plus 180. The figures are an illustration of the two minimums, not a description of any one MLS.

The participant has continuing duties as well. The site must show prominently a way to reach the participant, by email, telephone or another mode, and the participant or an affiliated licensee must be able to answer knowledgeably about properties in the area. The site must carry a privacy policy saying how registrants' information is used. And the participant must make reasonable efforts to monitor for and prevent scraping and other unauthorised copying of the MLS database.

What a seller can keep off the internet

The seller is not a party to any of this, yet the policy gives the seller three distinct controls.

The first is over the listing itself. The seller may tell the listing broker that the property is not to be displayed on the internet. The second is narrower: the listing may appear, but without its address. A VOW may not display the address of a seller who has asked for it to be withheld, though the policy leaves the participant free to give that address to a client by other means, such as email or fax. Both choices are recorded on a form attached to the policy as Appendix A, which the participant keeps for at least one year from the date it is signed.

The third control concerns what a website adds around a listing. If a VOW shows comments or reviews by third parties alongside listings, or links to them, or shows an automated estimate of market value, it must switch that feature off for a given listing when the seller asks. The listing broker notifies the MLS of the request. The site may state that the feature was disabled at the request of the seller.

Accuracy has its own channel. A participant must maintain a way to receive complaints about the accuracy of data the VOW itself adds, and must correct or remove false information. The policy does not require the removal of opinions held in good faith.

What an MLS may require of a VOW display

Section IV of the Modified VOW Policy lists the requirements an MLS may impose. Most come with a condition that expresses the parity principle once more: the MLS may impose them on VOWs only if it imposes equivalent requirements on other methods of delivering the same data to customers.

The floor on search results is the one rule that needs arithmetic. As a worked example, assume one MLS holds 1,500 listings and another 40,000. Five per cent of 1,500 is 75, which is less than 100, so the first MLS may not set its limit below 75 listings per search. Five per cent of 40,000 is 2,000, which is more than 100, so the second may not set its limit below 100. Both MLSs are invented for the calculation.

An MLS may also require certain fields to stay out of what registrants see. The policy lists expired, withdrawn and pending listings; sold data, unless actual sale prices are available from public records; the compensation offered to other participants; the type of listing agreement; the names, telephone numbers and email addresses of sellers and occupants; and remarks intended only for cooperating brokers.

Content must stay intact. A VOW may not alter the MLS content it displays. It may add to it, provided the outside source is identified, and it may show fewer listings or fewer fields than it receives. When a participant chooses to leave listings out, the policy allows it only on objective criteria, and it gives geography, list price, type of property, cooperative compensation and whether the listing broker is a Realtor as examples. An MLS may ask that listings obtained from other sources be identified as such, or searched separately, but it may not forbid a participant to download, display or frame them.

What an MLS may not do

Section III is addressed to the MLS, and much of it is written in the negative. An MLS must allow its participants to operate VOWs, directly or through an AVP. It must provide what the policy calls basic persistent downloading of all non-confidential listing data, with address fields, listing types, photographs and links to virtual tours. It may pass on the reasonably estimated cost of adding download capacity. It is not required to run a public website of its own.

On security, an MLS may require security measures, but none stricter than those it applies to itself. It may require an audit trail of registrants' activity, available to it when it has reason to believe a breach or a violation occurred. A participant who plans a VOW must notify the MLS and keep the site readily accessible to the MLS and to all participants so that compliance can be checked.

On appearance, the MLS may not restrict advertising or branding on a VOW except to bar what is deceptive or misleading. Co-branding is presumed not to be deceptive if the participant's logo and contact information appear next to those of every other party, and the policy even sets the proportions: the participant's logo is at least as large as the AVP's and larger than any third party's. Nor may the MLS stop a participant from adding outside information, technology such as mapping, or information derived from the data.

The AVP receives matching protection. The MLS supplies it with data on the same terms as a participant, for the sole purpose of running the participant's VOW, at fees no higher than a participant would pay unless the MLS's costs are greater, with the same download method, times and frequency. The MLS may ask for a licence agreement limiting the use of the data to that purpose. It may not cap the number of AVPs or prevent one AVP from serving several participants. And it may not prohibit, restrict or impede the referral of registrants, or the fees paid for them.

The policy carried its own calendar. MLSs had until 90 days after entry of the judgment to adopt implementing rules. Participants then had 180 days after their MLS adopted and implemented those rules to bring their VOWs into line. As a worked example, an MLS that adopted its rules on the ninetieth day gave its participants until day 270 after entry.

Where IDX fits, and what the pages read do not show

IDX is a separate policy for showing MLS listings on brokers' websites. The Modified VOW Policy treats it as a separate feature that may sit on the same site. The 2025 edition of the Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy lists the Internet Data Exchange policy as Policy Statement 7.58, under the heading for print and electronic advertising in Part Two.

That is as far as the sources for this guide go. The association's web pages for the IDX and VOW sections of the handbook were closed behind a member login when they were consulted for this guide in October 2026, and the full text of Statement 7.58 could not be read in the published handbook file. The details of IDX are therefore not stated here: which listings and fields participants may show, how a participant gives or withholds consent, the refresh interval, and how the listing firm must be credited. A reader who needs them will find the operative version in the rules of the local MLS. For the same reason, this guide does not say whether the VOW policy in today's handbook still matches Exhibit A word for word.

Compensation: from a withheld field to no offer at all

Compensation offered between brokers appears twice in the 2008 policy. It is one of the fields an MLS could require a VOW to hide from registrants, and it is one of the objective criteria a participant could use to leave listings out of its site. Both mentions assume that the MLS held such an offer for each listing.

That assumption ended in 2024. According to the National Association of Realtors, new practice changes and MLS rules took effect on 17 August 2024, and as of that date offers of cooperative compensation are not allowed in an MLS listing. The 2025 handbook carries a policy on the subject in Part Two, and the association published a summary of the MLS policy changes in a file dated 8 September 2024.

The association's page read for this guide states the rule in that one line. The detailed wording, including how it applies to data feeds and to IDX and VOW displays, was not read, in the summary document or elsewhere; it is not described here.

Delayed marketing since 2025: the feed held back

The most recent change gives the seller a control that works directly on listing data. The National Association of Realtors announced its Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy on 25 March 2025. It took effect that day, and MLSs had until 30 September 2025 to implement it.

The policy creates the delayed marketing exempt listing. The seller directs the listing broker to delay public marketing of the listing through IDX and syndication. Syndication is the passing of listings from the MLS or the broker to other websites. Only those two channels are held back: according to the association, the listing is still filed with the MLS, it remains available to other MLS participants through the MLS platform, and the listing firm may otherwise market the property as the seller chooses.

The length of the delay is not national. Each MLS sets the period, in the association's words, "in its unfettered discretion". The listing broker obtains a signed certification from the seller, which covers the professional relationship with the participant, the seller's understanding of the MLS benefits being waived or delayed, and the seller's decision about marketing. The same certification applies to the office exclusive exempt listing, where the seller directs that the property not be disseminated through the MLS or publicly marketed at all; that listing is filed with the MLS but not shared with other participants or subscribers.

The association says the policy works alongside its Clear Cooperation Policy and does not change local deadlines for submitting listings. Its page lists questions on days on market, on advertising on portals and on VOW display, but the answers were not in the text available for this guide, so they are left open here.

Since 2008 the seller could keep a listing, or its address, off the internet. Since 2025 the seller can also have the public feed delayed.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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