Drew from zillow. I've been in contact with Mr Bunson about this issue. I don’t think that it’s appropriate to discuss our conversation in public, however, I will say that what is described here is not a complete representation of the conversation. He’s welcome to continue to use the API as long as he doesn’t infringe upon our trademark and use our brand name "Zillow" on his website.

why do you care about him infringing on your brand? He's helping you guys out.

I believe you have to be able to show that you tried to stop others from infringing on your brand to protect your trademark at some future point in court.

Google sent letters to many people when 'google' was becoming a verb most likely for this reason.

Yep. If you don't protect your trademarks and copyrights you may lose them.

Trademark law is different from copyright law.

With trademarks you do have to defend them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_trademark...

However with copyrights they are yours from the moment you write something down to 70 years after you are dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Obtaining_and_enforci...

(And the way things are going, that 70 year number will go up by 10 years every 10 years.)

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm not really sure why I said copyright as I know better than that, I must have been tired or not thinking straight.

The users of "izillow" might not understand that "izillow" is not affiliated with zillow itself. It has the potential to damage their brand.

Is that a bad thing? It's their data, and it's helping them. I think the damage to their brand among developers is happening right here (I'm sure as hell staying away from Zillow in the future). Compare that with the 'damage' it would cause some random consumers who may or may not have a problem with izillow. Not worth it.

There are people out there who will read "unofficial version" and still not know that it's not official. Those people will not be any more clued in just because it has a different name - if it looks/works like zillow, it is zillow. Targetting this level of understanding is futile.

I went and looked at it, and I would have probably assumed it was affiliated with Zillow if I hadn't read this posting first.

Honestly I can understand zillow's side here but I'm just curious. Shouldn't the original use of izillow.com been grounds for trademark enforcement? The only thing I think is less than savory is that now, when you have your own iPhone application, you're going after this person and making sure people don't mistake it for an official version.

But like you say, there are details here that have not been disclosed, so I am by no means passing any kind of judgement.

"I don’t think that it’s appropriate to discuss our conversation in public..."

Welcome to the internet. Have a nice stay.

Have you folks learned nothing from previous examples?

Just a few weeks ago, the 'hacker community' was raising torches and pitchforks to defend a logo creator accused of "stealing his own work". We later learned he was likely guilty as charged: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552160

Have any of you spoken with Zillow? Before picking up your e-torches and e-pitchforks and twittering yourselves into apoplexy again, you might want to pause and ask "why would a company who depends upon developers do something so obviously hostile to third-party developers?"

Something doesn't smell right here, and public airing blind conclusions in a "too smart to be wrong yet again" echo chamber doesn't help matters for either party.

Moi? 'cause I'm not making the point you're railing against, and thus confused. It was barely on topic, in fact.