Saul's comments appear below.

1. I don't think that MLS participants from various markets CAN provide local listings to a national site, at least not the listings of other brokers in IDX. What RE/MAX CAN do, however, is to create a national portal site that effectively 'routes' consumers visiting it to the IDX sites of local RE/MAX affiliates.

3. The rule that Saul cites is an optional one, and many MLSs have not adopted it, instead requiring only that IDX listings be appropriately labeled. This is the rule against so-called 'co-mingling.' MLSs interpret it in different ways, but there are two major approaches, which I informally call 'search comingling' and 'display comingling.' In search comingling, the consumer inputs one set of criteria and the site searches multiple affiliated web sites simultaneously; the results, however, are displayed on the separate web sites of local MLS participants. In display comingling, the IDX web site displays listings from multiple sources on a single page.

Some MLSs interpret search AND display comingling as a violation of the model rule below, others see only display comingling as a violation, and yet another group just does not have this rule.

RE/MAX should be able to offer a portal for consumers to get to the IDX sites of RE/MAX affiliates, but it will have to make some efforts to ensure that it complies with varied IDX rules and varied interpretations of them.

Thanks!

-Brian

___________________________

Brian N. Larson, Attorney at Law

1100 One Financial Plaza

120 South Sixth Street

Minneapolis, MN 55402

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EM: BLarson@LarsonLegal.com

Web: www.larsonlegal.com

-----Original Message-----

From: Saul Klein [mailto:Saul@InternetCrusade.com]

Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 1:14 PM

Hi everyone,

I have been thinking about this since the announcement by ReMax and here are a few thoughts:

1. Is the idea to get an MLS participant from as many markets as possible to supply local listings to a national site?

3. Not all IDX implementation is the same. There are MLS local options. How is ReMax going to get around the following IDX Rule?

Section 18.3.13 - Listings obtained through IDX must be displayed separately from listings obtained from other sources, including information provided by other MLSs.

Doesn't this "nix" the idea of having all the IDX solutions displayed from one web site?

Saul