Commercial PropertyFaces Blush Crimson As GM Drops Suit Against LendingTree
General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC,) parent of GMAC Real Estate, has dropped its recently filed lawsuit against LendingTree, Inc.
One can only imagine the red faces at GM and GMAC Real Estate from the terse one-liner the company issued in response to Realty Times" requests to learn how the misunderstanding happened. Moreover, we wanted to know how it escalated so quickly into a court action.
"We are glad this matter was resolved promptly and amicably, and we are pleased with the resolution," said GMAC Mortgage media relations manager Erica Stoddard.
According to a press release issued by LendingTree, GMAC had alleged that LendingTree "was attempting to trade on GMAC"s reputation by using or appropriating GMAC"s trademark as a domain name."
What really happened was that GM/GMAC was confused about how domain names and subdomain names work. GMAC Real Estate"s domain name is gmacrealestate.com, but a dot-domain-name can bring anyone or anything to the LendingTree network or any other company that has a domain name. LendingTree, as owner of Realestate.com, got the blame for this dot-domain: gmac.realestate.com, which GM/GMAC interpreted as stealing and capitalizing on its domain name.
When you can put any suffix in front of any subdomain, you can be taken straight to the main page. Try it with news.realestate.com, bradpitt.realestate.com, coldwellbanker.realestate.com, or any other combination. They all go to Realestate.com.
It"s the new Name Game. Banana fanna fo fanna.
Charles H. Ellerbrock, counsel for GMAC, was quoted as saying, "Once we learned that LendingTree had not used "GMAC" in an Internet domain name, we withdrew the complaint. LendingTree was very gracious about the whole thing."
All the amicability was clearly on the part of LendingTree. A magnanimous Eric Cunliffe, senior vice president and general manager, Realty Services, rejoined, "We understand how these misunderstandings can occur, and GMAC was very prompt in withdrawing the complaint once it realized we had not done what it had accused us of doing."
Sensitive to LendingTree"s dominance as a lead generator for brokers and agents, corporate feelings at GM/GMAC had to have been running a little hot. LendingTree is in direct competition with GMAC Real Estate"s "Premier Service" and GMAC Mortgage network, and the site already boasts that 60 percent of its affiliates are "franchise," five to seven percent of GMAC, RE/MAX, and Realty Executives who have joined the LendingTree network.
When it was learned that gmacrealestate.com was similar to a sub-domain of LendingTree - gmac.realestate.com - the stage was set for a set-to. Not content to make a simple phone call, or fire off a nastygram from an attorney, GMAC Mortgage, which operates GMAC Real Estate as a subsidiary, got parent GM to club LendingTree with a lawsuit.
"When you own a domain name, you automatically own all the subdomains as well," explains LendingTree spokesperson Rebecca Anderson. For example, everyone uses something similar to "webmail.lendingtree.com" to manage their email."
So why did GM/GMAC shoot from the hip instead of finding out that this is a common occurance on the Internet?
"The suit was filed because they thought we were promoting gmac.realestae.com," says Anderson. "We have not, are not, will not, would not promote that URL."
So why have subdomains?
"We assume that when someone is coming to Realestate.com that they are trying to get to Realestate.com," says Anderson, "and we want them to have a good user experience and not see that 401 error page that you get when you type a URL that doesn"t work."
Not one to take chances, LendingTree is recognizing that its success is going to make it a bigger target. The company is also embroiled in a lawsuit with Cendant brands which have alleged trademark infringement against LendingTree.
"We are looking at additional ways to make sure users have a great experience," says Anderson, "and that they get where they want to go and avoid confusion in the marketplace."