Data feed license models and basic facts about the data license types. Also a short section regarding the intersecting rules for Clear Cooperation. 



IDX – Internet Data eXchnage

  • under the heading ‘advertising’
  • based on Broker reciprocity to market one another's listings
  • specifically for ACTIVE and SOLD data (back to Jan 1 2012, for chartered MLSs, non-REALTOR MLSs usually do 3 to 5 years of back-dated data)
  • MLSs can include non-confidential Pending data (SF includes contingent and pending data)
  • listing level opt-out, or broker/office level opt-out
    • but if a broker/office chooses to opt-out, they are also not eligible to receive an IDX data feed (but CAN still ask for a VOW, but that data cannot be used to market and display listings publicly)


VOW – Virtual Office Websites

  • not for advertisement, for back-end systems administration
  • predicated on an 'established broker-consumer relationship'
  • includes the additional data not normally included in vanilla IDX
    • confidential Agent remarks
    • includes listings that are IDX=NO
  • the opt-out mechanism is normally covered by a flag called "InternetEntireListingDisplayYesNo"
  • ESTABLISHED REQUIREMENTS FOR A VOW FEED:
    • registrants must agree to a lawful consumer-broker relationship and agree to a prominently displayed privacy policy (which forbids the consumer from scraping/harvesting data)
    • valid identity data: name, email, password (which must also expire after a pre-determined period)
    • display requirements: email, telephone (listing attribution)


BBO – Broker Back Office

  • like VOW, not for advertisement, but for brokers to build and maintain internal systems
  • can display any IDX=YES listings publicly just like IDX (see above)
  • can only show the IDX=NO or other not-for-public data and information by following the VOW rules
  • in many MLSs these feeds only have the data that belong TO the specific brokerage, but in SFARMLS, a BBO feed has all of the data in the MLS
  • like with VOW, consumers are required to have an agent-client relationship with an Agent of the brokerage in order to access any of the not-for-public data



CC 8.0 – The Clear Cooperation Policy 

  • This is an overlay rule that applies to SFARMLS because we are a chartered MLS through NAR
  • Any public display (through IDX or VOW, or by having a sign, or posting on social etc..) triggers the CC 8.0 rules (meaning the Listing Agent has 1 day to submit the listing as Coming Soon or Active)