Online Liability Blog™

Yesterday Magistrate Judge James Muirhead ruled in favor of ZeroBrokerFees.com in the website’s suit challenging the applicability of the New Hampshire Real Estate Practice Act - specifically the licensure requirement - to the operation of ZeroBrokerFees.com. The court ruled that pursuant to a statutory exemption for newspapers, ZeroBrokerFees.com was not obligated to obtain a brokerage license in New Hampshire before advertising real estate online.

For a refresher, see my post from last May.

Here is a copy of ZBF’s lawyers’ announcement, and a copy of the court’s 33 page order.

Not in this instance. But it’s certainly lame.

Avvo.com’s founder Mark Britton demonstrates his sense of humor in this post from earlier today, which concludes with a link to the lawsuit pending against the company (the post mockingly berates the ABA for its new blog list the same way Avvo’s litigation opponents challenge its online service). A one sentence comment I posted later in the day identifying me as the commenter and inquiring about the status of Avvo’s pending motion to dismiss the case first went unanswered (fair enough I suppose), then went AWOL.

I definitely support Avvo’s innovative website (which, for the record, presently does not assign me a rating). But deleting a pertinent comment is lame.

12/3/07 UPDATE: An Avvo representative has responded to this post (comment #1) and offered an explanation. See my reply (comment #2). Case closed.