Bing Real Estate has come under fire for allegedly listing properties sourced directly from Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com.
According to Inman, Microsoft promptly removed the listing data after being contacted by the listing portals.
“We contacted Bing earlier this week with a request to remove all Realtor.com content, and we appreciate their prompt response,” a Realtor.com spokesperson told Inman.
“Zillow has no license agreement with Microsoft for listings or our Zestimate,” a Zillow spokesperson told Inman.
“Its use of our content on Bing.com/homes was not authorised by Zillow and is not permitted by our terms of use.
“We’ve asked Microsoft to remove content sourced from Zillow from its Bing.com/homes experience.”
The issue came to light last week when Real Estate Standards Organisation Chief Executive Officer Sam DeBord’s wrote multiple threads on X, about Microsoft using competitor’s data.
Mr DeBord said Bing Real Estate has been around in some form for several years; however, the addition of traditional portal features — such as monetised ads, a mortgage calculator and the ability for homeowners to claim their home — sparked concerns about whether they were following IDX (internet data exchange) regulations since they aren’t an MLS participant.
Mr DeBord and others acknowledged theories that Bing Real Estate could be a SERP (search engine results page) that is simply indexing listings; however, the tech giant’s silence about their strategy made it difficult to lean on that explanation.
“It’s been around in some form for years,” Mr DeBord told Inman.
“A significant number of people have reported on a very light version of Bing that had been displaying homes for sale and it appeared that it was using Zillow and Redfin and other listing feeds to make these displays.”
“But the people who reached out to me more recently said this looks like a much more professional marketplace with monetised ads [and] functions very similar to a traditional portal, like the ability to claim your home.
“It appeared to have moved past a test phase into a full-fledged for-profit marketplace.”
Microsoft declined to answer Inman’s questions, with a spokesperson noting the company “has nothing to share at this time”.
