The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reached a settlement with five states on cooperation on rental information for Zillow and Redfin. This anti-monopoly lawsuit, which was scheduled to advance on Monday, focused on whether the cooperation between the two parties in 2025 weakened competition in the rental advertising market.
Cooperation agreements trigger litigation
The case originated in a cooperative arrangement last year. Under the agreement at that time, Redfin displayed Zillow’s rental home on his website, instead of continuing to compete directly with Zillow for rental advertising clients. FTC believes that this arrangement may allow Redfin to withdraw from the relevant advertising competition within a maximum of nine years.
Redfin owns Rent.com and PartnershipGuide.com, both of which are large United States rental information platforms. FTC and the Attorney General of Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and Washington state stated that Zillow had agreed to pay Redfin $100 million in exchange for the latter not competing.
Redfin restores independence.
As a result of the reconciliation, cooperation between the two companies will not be completely terminated. Redfin can still continue to display Zillow ' s rental home, but will regain the space to operate independently.
After reconciliation, Redfin can re-sell the advertisements, display the owner ' s home and seek new rental business customers. Meanwhile, Redfin no longer needs to share sensitive business information with Zillow.
FTC points to market competition being compromised.
Both companies have previously argued that this collaboration has helped tenants to gain access to more information about the source of the house. But FTC believes that Zillow is actually paying its main competitors to stop the competition.
According to the regulator, such an arrangement may allow Zillow to charge higher prices in the rental market and provide less favourable terms of cooperation to property managers, or may reduce the quality of rental information that consumers see.
This case also occurred against the backdrop of continued warming of antimonopoly enforcement in the United States. Just months ago, the U.S. Department of Justice just settled the Ticketmaster case. However, 26 of the 30 state Attorneys General who were then indicted with the Ministry of Justice for Live Nation chose to move forward and won the case in April this year.