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Legal battling between Zillow, Compass and Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) continued Thursday with all parties filing competing post-hearing briefs — Zillow alleging an “unlawful conspiracy” to cut off its access to Chicagoland listing data while defendants Compass and MRED counter that the company’s harm is “self-inflicted.”
The filings come after a two-day hearing earlier this week on Zillow’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent MRED from suspending its listing data feeds to the online portal.
Judge John Tharp Jr. is now weighing whether to grant the injunction, with replies to the new briefs due Monday.
In a 48-page supplemental brief, Zillow argued that MRED and Compass International Holdings worked “in lockstep” to block its Listing Access Standards, which discourage private listing networks that hide properties from public view.
Zillow’s brief accuses MRED — working with Compass — of revising its display rules to target Zillow’s listing standards and create a pretext for terminating its feed access.
It’s also alleged that defendants terminated or discouraged Zillow’s direct broker feeds, eliminating its only alternative source of Chicagoland listings.
Finally, Zillow claimed that MRED and Compass formed an alliance through which Compass “laundered its failed private exclusive listings through MRED, triggering an ostensible violation of MRED’s rules to justify termination of Zillow’s feed access.”
Attorneys for Zillow pointed to an October 2025 email from Compass CEO Robert Reffkin to multiple MLSs urging them to “discipline” Zillow by terminating its feed access if its standards were not “immediately repealed.”
Zillow also said that Compass terminated direct broker feed agreements nationwide and that MRED warned its members against providing Zillow with direct feeds.
The company argued that losing access to MRED’s feeds — which cover nearly all Chicagoland listings — would cause irreparable harm by triggering a “downward spiral” of lost audience and revenue that would be impossible to quantify.
“If Zillow’s listing supply is reduced to less than 50% in Chicagoland, that would directly undermine Zillow’s brand promise and audience-driven business model in ways that are difficult, if not impossible, to quantify,” the brief states.
Defendants reject conspiracy claims
In their joint 40-page brief, MRED and Compass painted a dramatically different picture — arguing that Zillow’s ban on listings previously marketed outside the MLS is the true anticompetitive conduct.
“Zillow is not entitled to the extraordinary relief it seeks because any harm, if it exists at all, is self-inflicted,” the defendants wrote. “If Zillow wants MRED’s feed, the ‘lifeblood’ of its business that it receives virtually for free, all Zillow has to do is not subjectively ban listings. It is as simple as that.”
Compass and MRED argued that Zillow’s Listing Access Standards policy, announced in April 2025, blocks listings from appearing on Zillow’s website if they were previously marketed outside the MLS — a policy designed to discourage brokers from using private listing networks and “coming soon” marketing strategies.
“Zillow pretends it favors ‘transparency,’ but in truth its ban achieves the opposite,” the brief stated. “Zillow only bans listings that were publicly marketed off-MLS and, as such, it encourages listings to be truly secret; it knowingly and deliberately withholds the fact that a home is for sale from its users.”
Defendants also argued that private listings are procompetitive and that MRED’s rules requiring “objective criteria” for listing filters are neutral and lawful.
They also contended that Compass and MRED each acted independently, not as part of any conspiracy.
“The evidence shows that neither Defendant wanted Zillow’s data feeds permanently suspended,” the brief stated. “Defendants simply wanted Zillow to stop banning and misrepresenting listings.”
Long-running dispute over listing access
Litigation traces back to Zillow’s broader antitrust lawsuit alleging that MRED and Compass conspired to cut off the listing portal’s access to the Chicagoland MLS listing feed.
The preliminary injunction motion requires Zillow to show it would suffer irreparable harm without the injunction and that it is likely to prevail at trial.
MRED suspended Zillow’s feed access on May 20, but the suspension lasted only two days after the court issued a temporary restraining order restoring access.
Dispute centers on Zillow’s Listing Access Standards, which ban listings from its platform if they are not available for display on IDX or VOW feed-powered websites within one business day of the property being publicly marketed.
That policy impacts listings that Compass markets as private exclusives before taking them public via the MLS.
Zillow has argued that its policy is pro-competitive and good for consumers because it promotes transparency, while MRED’s enforcement of its display rules hurts consumers and protects Compass from competition.
MRED has maintained that its rules are neutral and derive from a 2008 settlement between the Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors that prevented MLSs from selectively hiding listings from consumer-facing portals.
It remains unclear how long the court will take to rule on the motions.
This article was written by Jonathan Delozier and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation. It was reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.
