Royal & Sun briefs lawyers in attempt to stymie bogus site providers
Elaine Knutt
A top estate agency chain is leading the fight against “web pirates” that set up bogus internet sites.
Royal & Sun Alliance Property Services is to take legal action against several sites it believes are damaging consumer confidence in internet property advertising by purloining property data from agents’ websites or offices.
RSA Property Services has written via its solicitors to “several” sites it believes are infringing its copyright and falsely presenting information, and will issue proceedings against them if the pirated data is not removed.
RSA operations director James Chapman said: “There’s the passing-off issue, as our trade name and logo is also displayed on these sites. Some of the information is inaccurate, or out of date, and that reflects on us.
“It’s only become an issue in the past couple of months, as dot.com fever has gone berserk. People see it as a method of making a fast buck.”
“Web pirates” are motivated by the commercial advantage of a large database of properties that can be browsed by the public. Pirate sites earn revenue from the mortgage companies, removal firms or other service providers that advertise on their sites.
Last month, Countrywide scored a legal success when the group’s solicitors wrote to a pirate site to demand that information extracted from its agents’ offices, sign boards and published adverts was removed within a week. The site agreed to comply.
John Hunter, managing director of Countrywide subsidiary rightmove.co.uk, said its solicitors had advised that it could take action under legislation on copyright, database rights, or trade mark infringements.
Hugh Dunsmore-Hardy, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, reports a stream of complaints from agents this year. “It will cause problems if the accuracy of information on the internet is called into question, or if a buyer contacts the agent and is told the property is sold.”
