by: Roberta Murphy
Yesterday, when writing about Zillow, I was alerted that another San Diego real estate site had lifted the article in its entirety. But imagine my surprise when I visited the domain and discovered that not only one article, but all of our copyrighted articles and blog material going back to 2011 had been swiped.
True and obvious confession: I’ve not been a very active blogger in last three years–primarily because I decided to spend more time face-to-face with clients, realizing that online chatter can supplement, but not replace, human interaction. Additionally, I was still recovering from the death of my father.
But I digress.
A certain San Diego short sale site has illegally borrowed Prudential Real Estate’s logo, uses a fictitious agent name (not licensed as a California real estate professional), a phony license number, an out-of state IDX home search, and a photo that is actually one of a famous Indian actress and, I believe, the former Miss India.
This post is more a test than anything else–and if you are reading it on any site other than http://SanDiegoPreviews.com you can count on it being stolen and copyrighted material.
My next call will be to Prudential to advise them of their logo misuse, an email to Google, and likely an email to the broker at Solutions Real Estate, whose agent owns the offending site. Finally, I have paid for almost all photography used on our site, and to lift them is also a theft. That will additionally be reported to the photography vendor.
Finally, a huge thanks to a wonderful group of techy Realtor friends on Facebook, who had the mystery solved within two hours. The first call, though, came from Anila Whitney with Prospect Mortgage in Orange County. Thank you Anila!
Copyright 2012