When every seller in Ontario signs a Listing Agreement they are asked to acknowledge and agree that their REALTOR can advertise their home on the internet or most anywhere else.  This waiver provision allows the REALTOR to market your home without requiring them to tell you where, when and how your home will be marketed.  In pre-internet days this was a safe practice but today you may not know what you are agreeing too.

Your Privacy:
As the internet evolves at breath taking speeds so too is your privacy threatened by those seeking to gain inside knowledge about you, your family and your buying habits.  This information is at the core of every advertising campaign launched since the 1920's. The problem is today companies want to know everything about you they can and they are willing to pay someone for it.

As your listing data and home photos are posted online in an unsecured manner you are exposing the inner most details of your family life to companies paid to seek out and take it from you.  Using photo recognition software, companies are able to ascertain even the most infinite detail of our families preferences.  Everything from a cross on the wall to a bottle of perfume on a dresser is able to be recognized and added to the database being compiled about you.  Using your address and a simple cross reference from a registry your name is added to the details found for your home.  This information is then used to market directly to you.  

Now all this may sound like nothing to some people, but what happens when this information is used to impact your personal buying decisions in the future or maybe used by a potential employer to determine how much you really need your job.  Simple in principle but damaging in practice.

Let's not forget the data being complied on your child.  Favourite sports, colors or t.v shows all clearly shown in one bedroom photo.

Your Confidentiality:
Right now if your home is posted online without required login access, "YOU HAVE NO CONFIDENTIALITY".  Face it you are giving up your rights to others.

Listing Syndication:
We wish we could say one website is better than another but right now we can't.  Even realtor.ca, the site owned and operated by the Canadian Real Estate Association, has no privacy or confidentiality protections other than a simple warning pop up on the home page.  No security features, no login, no useage tracking and open access to the world.  That's not all.

There is a common marketing method called "Listing Syndicaton" that is designed to allow your home to be posted on 100's or 1000's of website by only posting the information once.  This is called Listing Syndication.  All of the FREE websites like Zoocasa.com, Homefinder.ca and Zillow.com  have reciprocal agreements between each other.  

What you may not know it that once your home is Syndicated in this fashion all your rights and privacy are given up forever.  Your data and photos can be filed away and used in any way deemed profitable today or tomorrow.  This is the single greatest risk someone selling a home today encounters.

Can you stop this from happening when you list?  Sure, call 905-336-7300 and ask for Ross or email him at rosskay@rosskay.com

RE/MAX Garden City Realty Inc., Brokerage,  each RE/MAX office is independently owned & operated
Ross Kay is a sales representative under contract with RE/MAX garden city realty Inc., Brokerage, Burlington. 
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