Rebuilding a Rival Is More Than Cancelling a Clause
The Zillow-Redfin settlement treats Redfin’s return to multifamily rental advertising as a capability problem, not a wording problem. This chapter follows the order from the legal freedom to compete through the practical requirements of a relaunch: access to listings and customers, technology, sales and support staff, employee know-how, investment, and proof of operation. That sequence explains why the remedy is more demanding than simply deleting the provision that kept Redfin out of the market.
The starting point is the distinction established earlier. Redfin must be free to sell its own advertising, acquire its own property listings, and decide how to present its own product. But freedom is only the condition under which a business may return. A rival that has stopped contracting with advertisers still needs a way to take orders, bill customers, staff the work, attract listings, and persuade property managers that it is worth choosing again.
Permission to compete must be connected to access
The order first restores the legal room for Redfin to operate. The parties must eliminate provisions that prohibit Redfin from owning and operating a rental advertising service for ILS customers. They may not enter a new provision that prevents Redfin from operating an independent ILS in competition with Zillow. The content license must also be amended so that Redfin can compete independently in the display, marketing, and sale of multifamily rental advertising, keep control over its own listings, and avoid terms requiring it to disclose nonpublic or competitively sensitive information to Zillow.
These changes address the direct restraint. If a company is legally barred from selling its own product, no amount of marketing or technical investment can make it a competitor in the covered market. Removing the restraint also matters to customers: a property manager must be able to approach Redfin without being told that the platform cannot accept an independent advertising relationship. The order specifically eliminates a noncompetition provision restricting Redfin’s ability to sell advertising to property managers or other ILS customers.
But a contract amendment does not recreate a customer base. The settlement therefore gives Redfin access to two forms of opportunity while it rebuilds. Zillow must continue providing robust syndication of multifamily listings to Redfin under the amended agreement. For nine months after Redfin meets the order’s reentry requirements, Zillow must allow an ILS customer whose contract cannot be canceled within three months to exit or renegotiate without cost or penalty. Zillow must also refrain from conduct aimed at preventing or impeding an ILS customer from contracting with Redfin.
These provisions address different bottlenecks. Syndication helps ensure that Redfin can offer renters a meaningful set of properties while it develops its own supply. The customer provision gives property managers a chance to consider Redfin when a long Zillow contract would otherwise make switching impractical. Neither provision transfers every customer to Redfin, and neither guarantees that a manager will choose it. They create a window in which an independent offer can reach the market rather than arriving after all demand has been locked away.
The arrangement also preserves an important boundary between shared inputs and an independent product. Redfin may continue displaying Zillow-provided properties, but it may not use the data feed to populate or fulfill a Redfin Only Product. Redfin’s own multifamily advertising must be based on its own customer relationships and Redfin-only properties, even if the overall Redfin site also carries Zillow content. This is a deliberate compromise. The feed makes a relaunch more viable, while the prohibition on using it as the substance of the independent product prevents “re-entry” from meaning only that Redfin continues to reproduce Zillow’s inventory.
That compromise carries a trade-off.