|
Written by realtor
|
|
Wednesday, 12 May 2004 |
|
realtor | real estate
realtor n. person who arranges the sale of houses and land. realty, n. real estate.
source; Webster's Concise English Dictionary 1992, 1991, 1983 by the Harrap Publishing Group Ltd. all rights reserved. ISBN 0-88029-773-5
realtor n. a real estate broker, esp. one who belongs to the National Association of Real Estate Boards. [f. REALTY(Y) +or 2; coined by C.N. Chadbourn of Minneapolis, formally adopted by the Association in 1916.
source; The American College Dictionary 1947, 1948 by Random House Inc.
On November 2, 1998 I registered this domain, "www.realestate-realtor.com", with Network Solutions.
On June 28, 2000 the National Association of Realtors had the audacity to use their political and financial power to cancel an in progress auction of this domain on e-Bay. Their rationale for doing this is that www.realestate-realtor.com is in violation of their trademark on the word 'realtor'. This is untrue; it is not a violation. As a result, they have restricted my right to free commerce and violated my First Amendment right of freedom of speech, as I am not able to use this word in its common usage.
What they fail to realize is that this word has become common in the English language, and by their standards any use of this word, anywhere, is a trademark violation, unless you belong to their Organization.
Well if I perform a query on the word 'realtor' in any one of the many search engines, you will get back hundreds of sites you can visit. The reason for this is that those sites are using the word 'realtor' in their Meta Tags as a key word (a line of HTML code in the header of the page that search engines look at to distinguish what topic(s) it can be associated with).
Now what becomes interesting is that these responses that you receive are not exclusively used to distinguish members of this Organization. No, they are used by individuals or businesses engaged in the occupation of real estate. If a query on this word exclusively yielded members of this Organization, that would be fine, but it doesn't.
Every web site that uses the word 'realtor' is using this word in its modern non-specific context, which is the description of an occupation, not necessarily a distinct tie with a specific organization. This word has lost it specific meaning since its inception in 1916 and has become a common use word.
Why is it that the National Association of Realtors is allowed to have a monopoly on this word? It certainly appears that this is the case. There are a lot of web sites I could provide as proof, but I am not here to drag others into my conflict. I am merely stating that others are using it in "violation". Why does the National Association of Realtors have the right to arbitrarily decide where and when to enforce this?
The floodgates have been opened, and it's impossible to control the usage of a word that has taken on a new meaning and use. I believe that everyone has a right to use this word in all forms. I openly challenge the National Association of Realtors as to the restriction of the use of this word.
This article was post first on the site at: May 11, 2001
By the first owner of the domain
http://web.archive.org/web/20010511050353/http://realestate-realtor.com/ |
|
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 July 2009 )
|
