Dozens of vendors and MLS organizations set to participate.

 May 13, 2013 – Scottsdale, AZ – The Clareity Security, LLC team is beyond excited to announce the official launch of the new Clareity Store.  The Clareity Store is an e-commerce platform, built from the ground up, to offer a unique and compelling value proposition to Multiple Listing Service (MLS) organizations and the brokers and agents they serve. The Clareity Store, in conjunction with MLS core applications, facilitates the purchase and integration of a wide range of third-party products and services within the MLS application.  In turn, these products and services become readily available to the MLS subscribers as part of their natural business workflow within their core MLS application.

Clareity has made extensive financial and resource investments designed to create an optimal, premium end user experience.  Through partnerships with “best of breed” real estate service vendors, Clareity Security is now rolling out the Clareity Store to MLS organizations across the country.  The Clareity Store is scheduled to launch to over 200,000 agents and brokers, in the following markets, starting in May 2013:

• Birmingham Association of REALTORS
• California Regional MLS
• Connecticut Statewide MLS
• Corpus Christi Association of REALTORS
• East Bay Regional Data
• Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS
• Greater Tulsa Association of REALTORS
• Intermountain MLS – Boise, ID
• Metropolitan Indianapolis Association of REALTORS
• MIAMI Association of REALTORS
• Mid America Regional Information Services – St Louis, MO
• North Carolina Mountain MLS
• North Texas Real Estate Information Services – Dallas, TX
• RealComp MLS – Detroit, MI
• Rhode Island Statewide MLS
• SANDICOR MLS – San Diego, CA

Clareity continues to work with the vendor community and expects dozens of additional partnerships to emerge in the coming months.  At opening, Clareity is pleased to announce the following fantastic group of vendors who have signed on to participate in the Clareity Store:

• 1000watt – Nudge
• AgentRatings.org / Stand out LLC
• Agents Armor
• AnnounceMyMove.com
• AOS Real Front Desk
• Bluebook International
• DaBest IDX Solutions
• GeoJet Information Solutions, Inc.
• Happy Grasshopper
• HomeFinder.com
• Homes.com
• HomeScenes.com
• idxUSA.com
• Imprev
• Instanet Solutions
• Leading Agent Real Estate Marketing
• LockboxCombos MLS Web Hosting
• Mobile REALTY APPS
• New Home Source Professional
• Proxio, Inc.
• Real Estate Digital
• Realty Connection
• RealtyTech
• Realty Tools, Inc.
• RealtyTrac Inc.
• REcake
• Reliance Network
• Sequent Systems
• Showing Suite
• Spot-On, Inc.
• Ultimate IDX
• Virtual Results
• VirtualTourCafe, LLC
• W&R Studios – Cloud CMA
• WellcomeMat
• Wise Agent
• Z57

Clareity, along with our valued customers and vendor partners, will celebrate the launch of the Clareity Store at the NAR Midyear conference in Washington D.C with a formal Clareity Store Launch Party.  For more information on the Clareity Store, look for us at NAR Midyear in Booth 520 or email Eric Hoglund, the Clareity Store Manager.

Erin Mahoney joined our team as an Executive Assistant and Public Relations Specialist working in the Scottsdale, AZ office.  Erin recently graduated with a B.A. in Public Relations from ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has a passion for ethics and intellectual property law and mastered techniques in writing and mass communication.  She developed strategic marketing plans for an independent mediation/arbitration firm and a local law school. When we asked Erin what she looked forward to most at Clareity she said “I am so proud to work alongside the innovative and driven members of the Clareity team. I hope to contribute to a surge in the national recognition of this great company and be a part of our rise to the top of the real estate software market.”  We love her spirit already!

Steven Yansak recently joined the team as our Staff Accountant in the Scottsdale, AZ office. Born and raised on the east coast, Steven has just recently moved from his hometown Rotterdam, New York to pursue opportunities in Arizona professionally and personally. Steven attended the University of Hartford earning his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an Accounting concentration.  He earned his minor in Psychology. Graduate school is in his future plans but Steven is currently enjoying his 20’s, his new job and is exploring his new home state.  Steven’s outgoing personality is a welcome addition to team Clareity – we love it when we find bean counters that are fun too!

Michael Elliot joined our Development Team in Knoxville, TN as a User Interface Developer.  He enjoys website design and the challenge of coding websites to work with design to make the user experience seamless and enjoyable. Michael started website design by accident in 2004, when he started coding his e-bay listings to look like a store.  With his new-found passion he set about learning website design. In addition to attending ITT and earning a degree in Multi Media, he refined his design and coding skills by spending much of his spare time practicing and learning new tools. When we asked Michael what he looked forward to most, he said “Now I can’t wait to see how I can take what I know to help Clareity Security be the best.”  That spirit to be the best is what we look for most in our team members and Michael embodies the Clareity spirit!

We are proud to welcome Erin, Steven and Michael to Team Clareity and look forward to their contributions in 2013 and beyond!

At Clareity we truly are Real Estate Integrators. In 2005, Clareity identified an industry challenge as MLS vendors and 3^rd party service providers integrated their services on various authentication platforms.  Our CTO, Matt Cohen brought our industry’s leading service providers together in Las Vegas. At the conclusion of the second meeting, all parties agreed to utilize the SAML platform moving forward. The National Association of REALTORS liked what we were doing and provided Clareity a grant to create a SAML tool kit for real estate software developers. Today, Clareity platforms now integrate with over 80 product and service providers.

Clareity Security was formed with great intentions. We wanted to create solutions that added value and solved problems specific to our industry. As an Industry partner we are proud to provide services to over 100 MLSs (and a significantly larger number of Associations), representing 550,000 real estate professionals.

Clareity built a solid business based on providing a higher level of data security and revenue assurance for sensitive and proprietary MLS information.  Simultaneously we began offering a Single Sign on Service to facilitate more secure and convenient access to third party applications.

Two years ago at the request of a few MLS customers we started delivering the Clareity SSO Portal – which leveraged the SAML platform and made Single Sign On (SSO) and the applications offered by the MLS more visible. The Clareity Portal empowered these organizations to demonstrate their value proposition while simultaneously creating a better subscriber experience.

The Clareity SSO Portal translated into immediate success for both the organization and the end user.  The benefits were immediate to our MLS and Association customers:

• They created a modern, locally branded experience that showed members the full range and value of the services offered
• They became the secure and trusted point of entry for all services.
• End users raved that a single User ID and Password provided access to ALL services
• Adoption of 3^rd party site licensed applications increased by as much as 12% within weeks
• They gained a new channel for pushing custom content to their members
• They added a mobile optimized entry point for applications and services.

Noting these benefits, our customers came to a natural conclusion for what should come next. They asked us to evolve the Clareity Portal into the Clareity Store to create a trusted place for secure E-commerce transactions.

Feedback we received from customers in 2011 and 2012 indicated a shift in traditional thinking regarding site licenses.  In addition to offering CORE services, our customers wanted to offer a broader choice of products and services to their subscribers, however existing site licensing models were often expensive and were becoming more difficult to manage as the list of vendors grew.   The “country club” model with one price for an all-inclusive experience was failing to offer the flexibility needed to keep up with all the innovation in real estate technology.  It also failed to create a personalized experience for subscribers based upon their unique needs.  Our customers also expressed frustration from licensing a product for every member, when adoption was low for many of the products.  And of course, there were also brokers that yelled STOP using my money to level the playing field – let agents pay for the optional things they want!

The solution to this dilemma is really quite simple:

CORE + STORE = SATISFIED MEMBERS (AND BROKERS)

Offering competitive and meaningful core services plus introducing a Store offers MLS organizations a bridge to the future of the MLS delivery of service.  This goes way beyond offering a stand-alone App Store.  This is about creating a hyper personalized and convenient way for products to be “one-click” ordered and provisioned to MLS subscribers while creating a seamless experience for members to access all of their products and services.

There has been movement by several vendors to develop proprietary APIs to improve access to and transport of MLS data.  Clareity Security, our customers and most of our industry partners believe that the industry is best served by having a single way to move real estate data between the MLS and other products. The RESO organization has worked hard on those standards over the past few years.  The MLS and vendor executive leadership is now in place to get both data standards and standards for transport in place in the very near future.  Clareity has donated hundreds of hours to RESO as have many other companies who are to be commended for their efforts.

Clareity knows that for a Store to be successful, it needs to be part of the end-user’s daily experience and nested in their natural workflow. Hence, the Clareity Store was designed to provide the customer’s CORE services through the SSO Portal and offer deep work flow integration within the leading MLS service providers software. Our approach has been validated by the ten large MLS markets representing an initial 270k actual users fully committed to this experience.

Additionally, we are pleased to announce a new partnership with CoreLogic to offer its MLS customers a customized Store within all CoreLogic platforms.  Clareity’s 550,000 user base combined with CoreLogic’s 650,000 MLS subscribers provides the national footprint that software developers and service providers have only dreamed about  - until now.

When you look at the BIG picture…what Clareity offers is an experience that is much more than just an App Store. Think BIGGER .  Combining CORE services with the choice of HUNDREDS of useful products and services that can be seamlessly ordered and provisioned to create a convenient, personalized experience for MLS subscribers was our design goal for our Store and we DID it!  Clareity offers real estate  organizations the opportunity to brand and evolve their business to the ever changing technology market.  And Clareity helps our customers accomplish this while doing it their way, at their own pace, and by respecting existing data licensing models and business rules while supporting evolving technology.

We hope you will reach out to us and learn more about the Clareity Store – and see for yourself why the App Store component is only a fraction of the Clareity Store offering!

Building upon Clareity and Corelogic combined market share of over 70% of the North American MLS market, the partnership immediately creates a brand new sales channel for CoreLogic customers to increase their product offerings and provide access to an ever-growing list of products and services their agents and brokers use everyday.

“With over 60% of the MLS operators in North America delivering their services on a CoreLogic Marketlinx platform, we are very excited to develop and implement a CoreLogic-branded Clareity Store for their customers.  The partnership will also provide our mutual customers with new, forward thinking opportunities to better serve their subscribers in the REALTOR® community,” exclaimed Gregg Larson, CEO, Clareity Security.

Please visit www.clareitystore.com for more information on the Clareity Store or contact:

Contact:

Eric Hoglund, Clareity Store Manager at eric.hoglund@clareitysecurity.com

Lets start with some simple internal questions to get in the right frame of mind: Who is your organization? What service do you provide? Who do you provide these services to? What value do you deliver to your customer?

I am aware most of you have already completed this exercise in some secluded strategic planning session for your business. But, as you ponder or answer these questions, dig deeper. Does your customer know these answers?  Is your customer aware of the full breadth of the services you offer? Is your customer aware of the value you are delivering? If they were aware of these benefits would it help you retain existing customers and secure new ones?

Over the years, our collective industry services have evolved.  Whether you are an agent,  a broker selling property/retaining agents, or an MLS, all these questions apply. Do you communicate your value to your customer? Does your customer know what products and services they are receiving in exchange for their investment in you?

Does your business continue to rely on emails, letters and flyers? Do you simply chalk up a 2% email “viewed” rate to the conditioned “RDR” response (short for REALTORS don’t read)?  Or do you want to reinvent the way your value can be communicated or presented to your customer?

Personally, my parents have always told me to be humble. However, humble does not always apply when it comes to my business. In business, I want to tell the world what we do, why we do it and who we do it for. I want to communicate what value I can deliver and why. I want to win over my customers. I want them to believe as I do.

I think many of you feel the same way about your business, so why not reinvent the way you communicate your value to your customers and prospects?

We believe your customer deserves to be presented with your value on a daily basis in a non-invasive manner. Your customers access your MLS data an average of 2-5 times per day.  Why not furnish them with all you offer through a custom landing page.  You may be surprised with the results.  Clareity customers currently using the SSO Portal have experienced:

• Increased Adoption / Usage of all Services – as the user is presented with all the service options upon login we generally see a 10% to 12% increase in adoption
• Improved End User Experience – one login to all solutions improves efficiency and ease of use
• Content driven down through broker/Associations/MLS Site – messaging is clear, concise and consistent as it is delivered to a customer across all services and through all access points
• Demonstrated value proposition to end users – the customer understands what services your business is offering

If you are looking to increase not only value perception, but redefine and deliver real value contact Clareity today to see how we can help.

In his new role as Clareity Store Manager Eric will be responsible for identifying, developing and managing store vendor relationships and over-sight of product promotion, marketing and sales.  Eric will work closely with the operations and executive teams to facilitate the best possible experience for both the MLS customers and Clareity Store vendors.  Eric has been a valued part of the Clareity Security sales team since 2008 and currently manages reseller relations.  He will continue in this capacity, working with our MLS partners to further develop those strategic relationships. “I could not be more excited for this new opportunity.  We work with some of the most outstanding people in this industry and my new post will allow me to work with them more closely and learn so much both professionally and personally.  The Clareity Store is going to be a great success, and I’m honored to be such a big part of it.” Stated Hoglund.

Eric graduated from Temple University with a BA in Communications and he currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.  He can be reached via email or 913-940-2162.

Clareity Security announced the Clareity Store in 2012 as an evolution of the existing Single Sign On Portal and proven Identity and Access Management solution that serves nearly 100 MLS organizations and more than 550,000 brokers and agents.  The Clareity Store is an e-commerce engine for MLSs. It enables MLSs to sell products and services to their members, and thus deliver value by making the MLS a one-stop shop for agents.

About Clareity Security:

Clareity Security, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the leading provider of data security, Single Sign On and compliance management products and services for the real estate industry. Our Scout for SAFEMLS® and SAFEACCESS™ products help MLS organizations and real estate professionals easily and effectively safeguard sensitive consumer information against unauthorized access and provides strong authentication solutions and revenue assurance for high value subscription services.  Clareity Security is the creator of Safe Syndication™, the leading listing syndication and IDX/VOW compliance management tool for brokerages and MLS organizations and has recently added the Clareity Store, an e-commerce solution, to its product offerings.

Contact:

Amy Geddes, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
480-444-0014 or Email

# # #

Two weeks ago, a gentleman named Ben Caballero contacted me and introduced himself as the chairman of the newly created National Association of Real Estate Professionals (NAREP).  Ben said he was a big fan of the Clareity Syndication Bill of Rights, so of course he had my immediate attention.  Ben told me that the NAREP had formally opened for membership in October and is organizing as a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association. NAREP plans to launch a national real estate listings network of Internet Data Exchange (IDX) websites overseen and managed by individuals who truly understand real estate — licensed real estate professionals. Ben’s goal is to create a competitive listings website that better meets the interests of listing agents and serves consumers better by delivering pure, current, and accurate information.

Following is an overview of NAREP and its objectives Ben sent me:

NAREP’s revenue model involves collecting a nominal $10-$20 total fee at closing from its member listing agents, a sharp contrast to those business models of Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and others (i.e., the “ZTRs”), which typically charge monthly fees regardless of whether any home sale results. NAREP’s listings site would conspicuously display NAREP member agent’s contact information.  NAREP member agents agree to cease syndication of their listings to all websites not adhering to Clareity’s Syndication Bill of Rights (www.narep.net/br). 

 As the controversy surrounding the ZTRs demonstrates, monetization of listing data incentivizes their much-discussed and questionable business practices. The Internet lends itself well to the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) concept when selling a commodity, and the ZTRs have adopted a form of the PPC model (in that they charge their fees on the front end, regardless of the outcome). The ZTRs treat a home as just another commodity, but a home is not a commodity from the perspective of the individual buyer or seller. Rather, it is a personal part of their lives. All homes — and their buyers and sellers — are unique in some way. In short, the buying and selling of a home is a personal experience that is much different than that of buying or selling a commodity.

 Until now, consumers and industry professionals have tolerated the ZTRs’ business practices for lack of anything better.

By introducing a non-profit business model to the Internet real estate space that relies on the Pay-Per-Sale (PPS) concept, NAREP will give real estate consumers and practitioners an alternative to the ZTRs. NAREP will do so: (1) by enabling its practitioners to ensure the integrity of their listings, as the IDX data feed will ensure accuracy since it comes directly from the MLSs; (2) by providing consumers with a simpler, more streamlined online experience; and (3) by satisfying consumers’ hunger for listing data. Because it incentivizes data integrity and promotes customer service from cradle-to-grave of the home buying/selling process, NAREP believes that, for homes, the PPS model of monetization is more compatible with the real estate industry’s long-standing and proven business practices. 

NAREP’s mission is to end syndication abuse, not syndicators or syndication sites. If they wish to remain relevant, they must adopt more responsible business practices than what they currently have in place. Clareity’s Syndication Bill of Rights is a good place for them to start.

So, Ben is a man on a mission.  NAREP is a fledgling trade association, but perhaps it can fill a void that groups like NAR, CMLS and the Realty Alliance have been unable to do for legal fears  - anti-trust or group boycott – and other reasons, including broker fragmentation on this issue.  Some colleagues have told me, “Gregg, NAREP is just a few brokers led by one guy that’s fed up with the system.”  My response to that has been, “Isn’t that how most groups start?”

I find NAREP very interesting as one of the first efforts in a long time focused on the interests of brokers and online publishing.  At Clareity Consulting’s first conference back in 1998 – “Law and Order in Information Commerce” – the content owner’s IP rights were a major topic on the agenda.   Since the beginning of online publishing, the collective voice and IP protection for broker’s content have been fragmented.  No offense to NAR, The Realty Alliance or Leading Real Estate Companies of America, but there has been a leadership void in this specific area, and other than the handful of brokers that have pulled their listings from syndication, 99% of brokers and agents have been forced to put up with the increasingly egregious terms and unfortunate business practices set by the national publishers, or “ZTRs” as Ben calls them.

Ben is not your average REALTOR®.  According to NAREP’s Press Release dated October 10, 2012:

“Caballero was the top individual real estate professional in the United States for 2010 and 2011, as measured by unit sales and dollar volume, with more than 4,500 home sales exceeding $1.2 billion in total value. He is the co-founder of the National Association of Real Estate Professionals. He serves as a member of the board of directors of the Greater Metro Multiple Listing System of the MetroTex Association of REALTORS®.”   

So Ben is not some wing nut with an idea who just fell off the turnip truck.  Ben knows real estate and he’s sick and tired of syndication and the publishers looking for ever-increasing profits, made off of his listings.  Can this one man rally the industry?

I love the subject of online real estate advertising and I’ve been involved with it since launching CyberHomes at NAR in Atlanta in 1995.  (Wow, that was 17 years ago this week.)  I was curious what a large brokerage I respect would think about NAREP, so I made an introduction, and Ben met with them last week.   I was impressed when this firm responded very positively and agreed to join and support NAREP and the company’s CEO was invited to join the NAREP board. This brokerage is part of a powerful national franchise/organization and is also a member of the Realty Alliance.  A few large brokers can put a dent in any publisher’s inventory.

Will NAREP grow to fill the aforementioned void and be able to turn the table on the publishers?  Will NAREP be successful enough that the publishers are forced to further moderate their practices in order to receive the broker’s listings? Will the national publishers, with over two billion dollars in market capitalization, and more than $300 million in cash, overwhelm anything NAREP, and a freshly united real estate professional group, do to reach consumers?

NAREP reminds me of a song I learned at bible camp in Minnesota when I was about 10 years old: “It only takes a spark, to get a fire going …”

NAREP will be in booth #422 in Orlando, or you can reach the man on a mission at:

Ben Caballero,Co-Founder and Chairman

National Association of Real Estate Professionals, Inc.

(214) 997-1229 | (214) 616-9222 mobile

ben@narep.net | www.narep.net

Scout for SAFEMLS^® serves as a comprehensive solution that reduces administration and total cost of ownership compared to traditional strong authentication products. The SAFEMLS^® intelligence-based authentication suite combines access intelligence and zero-footprint, strong authentication to accurately identify risks and then cost-effectively mitigate them. The foundation of the solution is an identity-profiling engine for aggregating user access data, creating statistical profiles, and detecting anomalies. Powered by patent-pending keystroke dynamics, SAFEMLS^® is unrivaled in its ability to accurately and transparently identify users, detect account sharing, account takeover, and differences between individual users not possible with traditional device or IP tracking.

“MRIS shareholders and our customers expect that we protect our copyrighted content against misuse and outright theft,” stated MRIS’ CEO David Charron. “Given that our market generates over $103 million a day in sales, our long-standing partnership with Clareity Security provides MRIS with those tools, backed by experienced professionals, in a customized, yet cost-efficient manner to meet and exceed customer requirements.” 

MRIS has been a Clareity Security customer since 2006, where the SAFEMLS platform has been part of an overall data security and data access management strategy.  “We are very pleased with this continued vote of confidence in the Clareity Security team and our flagship Scout for SAFEMLS solution.  MRIS has always taken a position of leadership and excellence in our industry and we are grateful for this on-going multi-year partnership,” asserted Gregg Larson, CEO, Clareity Security.

About Clareity Security:

Clareity Security, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the leading provider of data security, Single Sign On and compliance management products and services for the real estate industry. Our Scout for SAFEMLS^® and SAFEACCESS^™ products help MLS organizations and real estate professionals easily and effectively safeguard sensitive consumer information against unauthorized access and provides strong authentication solutions for secure online transactions. Additionally, Clareity Security is the creator of Safe Syndication^™, the leading listing syndication and IDX/VOW compliance management tool for brokerages and MLS organizations and recently announced a new e-commerce solution, the Clareity Application Store.

About MRIS:

Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. (MRIS) is Real Estate in Real Time™. We’re a leading provider of real estate information technology and services, and are frequently ranked among the most productive Multiple Listing Services (MLS) in the nation, facilitating over $35 billion in projected system wide sales in 2012. In its core market, MRIS supports over 44,000 real estate professionals spanning the Mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia. MRIS provides a portfolio of technology solutions and proprietary databases for real estate professionals, as well as broker and agent software products and an industry-leading consumer portal, HomesDatabase.com. In addition, the CURE Solutions Group, a subsidiary of MRIS, provides proprietary back-end technology to other MLS systems, which serves nearly 150,000 customers each day. Visit MRIS at MRIS.com and our web based TV station, mrisTV.com. “Like” us on Facebook/MRISonFB, follow us on Twitter, @MRIS_REal_News and be sure to visit MRISblog.com for real-time news and company updates.

Contact:

Amy Geddes, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
480-444-0014 or Email

# # #

“We are pleased to be a member of The Shibboleth Consortium and continue our participation in their open source SSO project.  We have openly supported Shibboleth in the deployment of SSO with our SAFEMLS and Single Sign On customer base and will continue to work to provide best practices for implementation going forward.” stated Paul Hethmon, Clareity Security’s Chief Software Architect.

About Clareity Security:

Clareity Security, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the leading provider of data security, Single Sign On and compliance management products and services for the real estate industry. Our Scout for SAFEMLS® and SAFEACCESS™ products help MLS organizations and real estate professionals easily and effectively safeguard sensitive consumer information against unauthorized access and provides strong authentication solutions and revenue assurance for high value subscription services.  Clareity Security is the creator of Safe Syndication™, the leading listing syndication and IDX/VOW compliance management tool for brokerages and MLS organizations and has recently added the Clareity Application Store to its product offerings.

Contact:

Amy Geddes, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
480-444-0014 or Email

# # #

SAFE Syndication™ places all of the IDX and VOW license information in an easy to use application. It is no longer a challenge to hunt down the latest version of an Excel spreadsheet or chase down paper in a filing cabinet which is sometimes lost or destroyed.  The MLS can easily assign various duties to individuals as the information flows through the system. One employee can enter all of the site information into the system and, because the MLS can set a site to require an audit on load, the Compliance Department can audit the site based on a list of upcoming audits in the dashboard. In an environment where one user is responsible for all of the processes, there is no longer the need to keep track of licenses in one system, sites in another, and audits in yet another. All sites are audited based on the same set of rules so the process creates objectivity and neutrality while eliminating prior subjective decisions with undefined or undocumented sets of rules.  Additionally, because SAFE Syndication™ becomes the system of record, it provides an up-to-date representation of all MLS’ IDX and VOW vendor and publisher licenses.  With the ListHub integration, the initial import of the original data and the ability to define an audit schedule, SAFE Syndication customers are up and running very quickly.

Cathy Libby, Operations Manager for MREIS, an early adopter of SAFE Syndication™, had this to say: “MREIS decided to become an early user of SAFE Syndication based on the fact that Clareity Security’s program provided a solution to many of the steps MREIS was already doing in-house by cobbling together various tasks.  Rather than recreate the wheel, we felt it would be in our best interest to switch to this program, despite it being in its infancy.  We were able to work collaboratively with Clareity Security, provide our input and help develop SAFE Syndication into a first class product. 

MREIS uses SAFE Syndication to track all of the vendors providing IDX and VOW services to our Participants.  We also use it to conduct mandatory compliance reviews and routine audits of IDX and VOW web sites.  SAFE Syndication provides one central location for all of our information and having the dashboard really helps when more than one person is involved in the compliance process.”

As MREIS has experienced, SAFE Syndication™ offers many benefits.  The first and foremost benefit is ensuring that the rules are applied to all participants equally.  When an MLS sets up their service the initial task is to set the audit schedule for IDX websites and VOWs, for both customizable and non-customizable sites. The MLS determines whether new and/or existing sites will require an initial audit and the percent of sites audited in a given timeframe.  This feature, accessible from the SAFE Syndication™ dashboard, drives the list of sites needing to be audited. Using a consistent rules-based method for determining which sites to audit is a major step in addressing complaints about inconsistent rule enforcement.

SAFE Syndication™ also ensures compliance with all of the rules and consistently validates when a site is due to be audited.  This presents a consistent message to the industry that the cursory method in which sites were being audited in the past was insufficient.  A glance is not good enough to meet the comprehensive audit requirements facing MLS’ today.  If a compliance staff says IDX sites take only minutes to audit and VOWs just take an hour or two, a warning flag should be raised – the MLS needs to take steps to improve the comprehensiveness of its audits.

SAFE Syndication™ manages the entire audit process.  It can be dizzying to stay on top of those sites due for audit, those in progress, in remediation, and those requiring a re-audit, not to mention sites going back and forth through these steps on their way to “completion and compliance”.  The program dashboard makes it easy to keep track of audits in progress and to ensure the audits are being completed in a timely manner.

SAFE Syndication™ also saves staff time in a variety of other ways and makes it significantly easier to multi-task audits with other workflow. MLS’ have a clear “to do list”, can easily find and manage audits in progress and can swiftly find older audits by searching only the website address in question. SAFE Syndication™ also makes it easy to see the audit history of a website and manage multiple audit report versions over time. SAFE Syndication™ provides a scalable solution which is far superior to the current processes that are dependent on the mindfulness of a single compliance person  and are managed with over-stuffed filing cabinets, unwieldy spreadsheets and complaint filled emails and sticky-notes.

Once you get started with SAFE Syndication™ you’ll finally feel like your IDX and VOW compliance is being done right and is totally under control.

For additional information on SAFE Syndication™ please contact us at sales@clareitysecurity.com.