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Zillow started recording conversations between Realtors and Buyers shopping on their website in October 2015. Zillow�s legal stand on this is they have the Premium Agent�s permission. Zillow says they only need one party�s permission to record conversations.
Why is Zillow be doing this?
America's favorite website for residential real estate (soon to be China's as well) is spying on consumers?
Z says it is for the good of agents to play back a conversation that may have been completed on the fly. Z knows how to sell a story to agents. Zillow is an information "aggregator." They are a lead generation site, not the free Multiple Listing Servic information site. Every keystroke, time on site and habits of consumers is tracked. This information can be sold, and not just sold to Realtors, Lenders, Banks, Insurance Agents, Credit Fixers, Remodeling Pros� you get it... information makes the big Z almost five hundred million dollars a year.
Zillow doesn�t care if a listing is already sold or if their Zestimate is wrong. About forty one percent of the listings on Zillow are already sold, off market, or incorrect. They have more advertising sales men and women than they have engineers in Seattle, (the building across from me in Irvine, San Francisco, Lincoln or New York (Oh and read the story about the Big Z cornering the market on rentals in NYC).
Zillow represents premier agents as if they are the listing agent. One of Z�s great tricks soon to be shut down by the CFBP is how Zillow sales agents get Lenders to pay for Realtor ads.
So what else do I think Z is doing with the recordings?
Since Zillow has intense tracking models they can compare the voice, wording, timing, exact sales pitch and responses from a top agent. This spy like information can be sold as education for agents or used when they begin their own Z agencies and sell real estate directly.
Google, Microsoft, Mine Government and everyone with a cell phone
is recording our lives...
Google, Microsoft, Mine Government and everyone with a cell phone
is recording our lives...
How do you feel about being spied upon?
Below Zillow Consumer Affairs rating a 1 of 5
�Stand Out Where It Matters Target buyers and sellers in your local market and increase visibility for you and your listings.� Zillow slogan
Teke Wiggin�s full article here
From the Inman article posted today:
�A number of critics questioned the legality of the recordings. Federal law only permits the recording of a phone call if one party to the call has consented to the recording, they point out. And some state laws go further, requiring all parties to consent to a recording.
Jay Thompson, director of industry outreach at Zillow, countered in a Facebook conversation that Zillow�s terms of use disclose to consumers that their phone calls might be recorded. And Zillow told Inman in an email that the listing portal also informs consumers that they are being recorded at the beginning of calls, �even in the states that do not require two-party consent.�
Zillow agent advertisers, meanwhile, �are made aware of the feature during their on-boarding process and through product release information,� and they have the ability to disable the feature, Zillow said.�
Go look at Zillow's Premier Agent Training Videos. They explain how an incoming Consumer call is transferred to a Realtor and recorded so the agent can play back anything they missed. What Zillow and Trulia their other company want to do is corner all online real estate transactions
http://www.zillow.com/agent-resources/news/industry-updates/introducing-premier-agent-app/
Here's you COOL AID
Zillow stock is down from a high of 33 to 18 today Consumers are not going to like this news Is Big Brother Z is going to drop all my reviews now? YES |
