It was over in a matter of minutes, on Saturday morning, about 10:45 Eastern time. The biggest and most critical vote by the National Association of Realtors board of directors since online data display became a possibility passed with a chorus of yeas, a few nays, and a round of applause.

"We have now set the rules and created an even playing field for everyone," says Steve Cook, spokesperson for the NAR. "Before that, chaos reigned."

To read the new VOW policy, click here.

According to Cook, the quick and almost unanimous vote showed that there was a consensus within the board and associations, and that the vote reflected positively on the work of the VOW workgroup.

The new VOW policy is consumer-friendly

The NAR had been criticized by some for putting off the VOW proposal vote by the NAR board at the November meeting last year in New Orleans. Leadership voted instead in favor of taking additional time to educate leadership and members about the issues surrounding VOWs. Detractors called the delay "anti-consumer," a word Cook vigorously disputes.

"One of the obstacles to making MLS data available to consumers via virtual office Websites was that many brokers did not feel confident about VOWs and how they should work," defends Cook. "Now there are rules in place that are fair for everyone, and people can go ahead with their VOWs with a much greater degree of confidence."

To criticisms that broker opt-out might not be in sellers' best interest, Cook says, "Brokers have the right to represent sellers in they are working in interest of seller and where the listing should be displayed. At the end of the day, it comes down to the seller's interest. The broker is there to do the best possible job in the interest of the seller, then the broker helps them sell their property using the best vehicles, and they should have the authority to counsel a seller on how a property should be marketed, and not putting them where they might be scraped or used in a way that is not in the seller's best interest."

The new VOW policy is broker-friendly

With a flexible national policy, MLSs will make their own decisions for their marketplace on the implementation of technologies, policing procedures and operating rules to enable brokers to download the MLS database and make it available to consumers. They will do so in response to what local brokers want, says Chip Roach, vice chairman of Fox & Roach Realtors.

Roach, a veteran of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors' VOW committee, said, "The brokers have to want it, and not everyone is going to."

MLSs will have wide latitude in implementing VOW policy, after taking into account state laws. Some may implement VOWs with either blanket or selective broker opt-out, depending on what local brokers want. This means that brokers can either keep their listings out of all VOWs (blanket) or they can select which VOWs they will allow their listings to be displayed (selective.)

Threats from discounters are a non-issue

Some say that if brokers vote for selective opt-outs at the local level, they may be setting themselves up for lawsuits, but the new policy is designed to give brokers choice at the local level, which should dispel any notions of punishing competitors for not allowing their listings to be advertised on competitors' sites.

One traditional broker says he as already been vaguely threatened by a major discount e-broker. During a friendly rhetorical conversation one day, the e-broker told the trad that if he removed his listings so they wouldn't appear on the e-broker's VOW, that would hurt the e-broker's business model and he would have to sue.

The trad says he laughed off the veiled threat, and told the e-broker to go right ahead. "Some brokers will not want their listings to be shown on sites where discount commissions are advertised," he says, "and I don't think any court would force a broker to do that. An opt-out provision from the MLS means the broker has options. It's a personal business decision, not a conspiracy."

Explains Cook, "Discount brokers can compete the same way anyone does - we had discount brokerage long before anyone thought of VOWs, and this proposal and vote had nothing to do with discount brokers. If a discount broker's business model needs to be adjusted to deal with these policies, and that may be the case, so do all brokers. In no way is this policy aimed at discount brokers. It is fair and effects everyone the same way."

Advertising/referral sites go to Plan B

With the advent of VOWs, the disintegration of the advertising model, and continued competition from free listing sites such as Realtor.com, many online portals such as Yahoo!, Lending Tree, HomeGain and others have created a new way to get listings and turn them into advertising revenues - by charging brokers for closed leads on the back end as referral fees. These sites have acquired brokerage licenses in states such as California so they can charge referral fees of 25 percent to 35 percent, combining advertising mediums with affinity business models. These companies use broker VOWs and MLS listings to attract consumers to the company's "affinity", where the broker pays a referral fee to get leads.

Now, the new VOW policy may have some of these business models back at square one. Brokers can advertise their VOWs on any site, but no money can change hands for consumer names to companies whose activities do not "consist of listing or selling the types of properties required to be filed with the MLS." Referral fees don't count as selling.

"The way the policy passed by the BOD's, it pretty much eliminates the companies that are not primarily involved in brokerage from setting up their referral portals using the MLS data," says Arizona broker Bill Jilbert. "I suspect they will be trying to find legal ways to do so in partnership with existing MLS participants."

"The brokers might have had that business without a referral fee," said one anonymous broker at the VOW board meeting. "All they have to do to put those kind of companies out of business is simply to refuse to do business with them. If you don't pay them, they don't exist."

Most likely, some advertising/referral sites will attempt to get brokers to share their Internet data exchange solutions instead of their VOWs, and perhaps attempt to aggregate the listings as in a Realtor.com. There are currently no prohibitions in place for charging for consumer information with IDX because IDX visitors do not have to register to see the listings, but that could change.

VOWs will be monitored

Says Cook, "We preserved the rights of sellers to privacy, and the brokers to control the marketing of their property. They have the right to say where their MLS listing goes and doesn't go, and we preserved the viability of the MLS system.

"If you look at the policy, the MLSs have a lot of flexibility and they need to make to make their own decisions for their marketplace, and MLSs need to move forward now. They don't have to wait for first of the year, and then once an MLS has a policy in place, all brokers and VOWs have 180 days to comply, so for a lot of MLSs they have to be ready for requests for someone who wants to download data. There are technical issues, as well as business issues."

Yet, with local MLSs making policy, not all brokers may be satisfied.

"A potential spin-off of this policy could be the development of local privately owned MLS services that are not governed by the NAR BOD's policies," says Jilbert. "There have been rumors that the larger brokers have already begun preliminary meetings on this subject."

"It is hard to look ahead," says Cook. "I think everyone in the Realtor community learned a lot in the process and the debate may continue, and some things may need to be revisited. MLS policy has evolved and this may evolve too, but there is a policy that sets the ground rules by which everyone has to play.

"We are going to continue to monitor and study VOWs and see how it all unfolds and see how business works under the new system," says Cook. "We try to strive for fairness and equity envisioned in the policy."