The Department of Justice has sued the National Association of Realtors® over a policy that no longer exists, says the trade association, pointing to the government's complaint , filed yesterday in US District Court, as evidence.

In the 14-page complaint, only one paragraph mentions the new Internet Listing Display (ILD) policy enacted by the association last week. The balance of the document refers to a former policy, known as Virtual Office Websites (VOW). The suit primarily challenges three provisions of the former policy, two of which are not part of the new ILD policy.

The one provision challenged by government in its complaint that still exists in the new NAR policy governs brokers' ability to opt out of displaying their listings on competitors' websites. The suit mischaracterized the purpose and effect of the provision, which was intended to protect brokers' ownership rights in their property listings, says the NAR.

All broker members of the MLSs would have access to other brokers listings in the MLS repository. The ILD policy governs the Internet display or consumer viewings to those listings.

NAR has discussed provisions of the new policy with Department of Justice attorneys since May and provided them the new policy before it was made public yesterday.

"The new policy results in part from the discussions NAR held with the Justice Department over the past four months. We listened to what they had to say and they helped us to come up with a significantly better policy. We're shocked and disappointed that after all these discussions, they would sue us over a policy that no longer exists. We would like to encourage them to revisit their decision," said Laurie Janik.

The new ILD policy consolidates and replaces both the VOW policy and NAR's Internet Data Exchange (IDX) policy to create a single, unified policy governing the Internet display of all property information originating from the more than 800 multiple listing services owned and operated by Realtor&ref; organizations, explains the NAR.

To repeat, all MLS property listing data available for display will automatically be available to all MLS members unless a member notifies the MLS in advance that he or she does not want to participate in Internet Listing Display. In that case, none of the listings he or she enters into the MLS will be available for display on other brokers' websites nor will he or she be allowed to display other brokers' listings on his or her own website.

A broker who has elected to "opt out" may not reverse that decision for 90 days. This provision, known as "blanket opt-out," is included in the IDX policy and has been in force by hundreds of MLSs for three and a half years. It has been widely accepted by the industry and very few brokers have chosen to opt out.

DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General J. Bruce McDonald, who had been negotiating with the NAR, told Realty Times that the reason for the suit was that "NAR was not willing to go far enough to bring their rules into compliance with the antitrust laws."

He told reporters at the time of the filing that the NAR's policy 'obstructs real estate brokers who use innovative Internet-based tools to offer better services and lower costs to consumers."

Attempts to ask McDonald if the suit, which was filed within an hour of the NAR's announcement of its new policy, was ill-conceived, garnered no response.

When asked about the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against NAR yesterday, RE/MAX chief legal officer, Geoff Lewis, commented, "The DOJ legal action is ill-timed and misguided. The lawsuit attacks an earlier NAR proposal that was never implemented and has now been superseded by the ILD policy. The DOJ seems to have been caught off guard by the new ILD policy and was reduced to "spin-doctoring" yesterday when they were quoted as saying the new policy is essentially the same as the one earlier proposed."

However, that may not be enough to save Realtors' reputations. The Wall Street Journal reported, that McDonald, who was appointed to the post by President Bush last month, said that the NAR's policy "stifles competition to the advantage of some of its members, at the expense of home buyers and sellers across the country."

The WSJ also wrote, "The suit went forward despite the policitical power of the association's more than 1.2 million members in state capitals and Congress, and is likely to win strong support among consumers."

(Editor's note: This is an obvious jab at the large number of House representatives supporting the Realtor-sponsored "Community Choice in Real Estate Act," designed to keep banks out of real estate, and which is opposed by the "Fair Choice and Competition in Real Estate Act, sponsored by Bush clone, Chairman Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, and ranking member, Senator Barney Frank (D-Mass.), of the Financial Services Committee which oversees banks.)

So that's what this is about? Winning "strong support" among consumers? To benefit whom?

Consumers already benefitted quite a bit or they wouldn't have been willing to pay over $60 million in commissions to Realtors last year.

Thanks, WSJ. Your reporters just told the world what your role is in this land grab.

So we've got the government jumping the gun on a lawsuit filed by an attorney that was appointed to his post only a month ago by a pro-banks, pro-big business President. And the press is doing its part by whipping up consumers against the largest organization of independent contractors in the world.

If Realtors and the NAR can be weakened, so will their support in Congress. Without the NAR, who will be around to stop Oxley from taking real estate away from state oversight? Under federal oversight, banks will not require licensure to sell and manage real estate. Who will lobby Congress to retain homeowner benefits such as the mortgage interest rate and property tax deduction?

But Bush, Oxley, McDonald, and the WSJ may have overplayed their hands. After all, this is a 1.2 million-strong group of tax-paying, economy-promoting, gross domestic product-producing Americans we're talking about, not terrorists.

This is hardly the invasion of Iraq.

The state law-abiding constituency known as the real estate industry does not deserve to have its own government cheerleading in its demise. Under that logic, every company that sells items at retail in the nation should forget showrooms and open its stockrooms to the masses to "save consumers money."

Folks, this is a shameless asset-grab, and it's time Realtors fight back by exposing the real agenda behind the DOJ's, FTC's and Mike Oxley's interest in real estate - taking the real estate industry away from Realtors and giving it to banks.