this move–supporting role The battle for Move parent company Move is heating up real estate agent network, An amended complaint was filed Friday in a lawsuit against the company home network parent company and James Kaminsky, a former Realtor.com employee who is now the editor of Homes.com.
Move alleges in the lawsuit that Kaminski, who was fired from Realtor.com in January 2024, where he led the company’s “news and insights” team for nearly a decade, stole his former employer’s trade secrets. , to help drive the company’s rapid growth.
According to the lawsuit, Kaminsky’s position at Realtor.com gave him “knowledge of virtually every aspect of the business, including strategy, financial investments and results, organizational structure and operational details – all information that would be unavailable to a business-focused competitor.” It’s all very valuable.” Increase website traffic. ”
Additionally, Realtor.com claims that its News & Insights platform “differentiates it from its competitors, attracts user traffic to Realtor.com and sustains that traffic over time.”
Kaminsky’s role in CoStar was in his LinkedIn As editor of Homes.com, he manages and oversees a team of 10 employees. Move claimed Kaminsky was running Homes.com’s “Insights” tab, but CoStar CEO Andy Florance claimed Kaminsky was “a relatively junior employee responsible for writing Description of New York City Apartment Buildings”.
Kaminsky’s LinkedIn account describes him as “‘Content Strategist,’ ‘Senior Editorial Director,’ ‘Team Leader,’ and ‘Brand Builder,'” according to the complaint.
“While CoStar’s CEO claims that Mr. Kaminsky is a junior employee and Mr. Kaminsky’s LinkedIn profile labels his role and experience as a senior employee, CoStar’s general counsel recently stated that Mr. Kaminsky Mr. Key was a ‘middle manager,'” the complaint states. .
“There is no doubt that his position at CoStar involved creating and editing content for a residential real estate listing website with the goal of driving traffic to that website, and the trade secret documents misappropriated from Move were related to his business of creating and editing content for a residential real estate listing website. , with the goal of increasing traffic to their website.
CoStar has placed Kaminsky on leave in light of the lawsuit.
In June 2024, Move discovered that Kaminsky continued to have “unauthorized access to Move’s confidential and trade secret information” after being fired from Realtor.com.
“Such information, in the hands of competitors, provides CoStar with a substantial unfair advantage in building content products,” the complaint states. “The valuable information relates to business strategies, employee lists and contact information, employee salary information, internal budgets, industry Contact lists, third-party collaborations, publishing topics, publishing schedules, assignments, financial analysis and a host of other valuable information that was competitively sensitive and relevant to Move’s Realtor.com business, Mr. Kaminsky at least monitored after CoStar hired him. Moved confidential files 37 times.
According to the document, Kaminski only stopped accessing the files after a Move employee discovered him in a purportedly confidential Move live file, at which point Move blocked his access to the files.
“Mr. Kaminsky’s access to and viewing of compromised Move information was clearly within the scope of CoStar’s employment as a content editor for Homes.com. Mr. Kaminsky’s illegal conduct – accessing and viewing a competitor’s confidential electronic documents and trade secrets Information, these documents and trade secret information related to the business of creating content for an established residential real estate portal (Realtor.com) while simultaneously creating content for another residential real estate portal (Homes.com) – for which he worked at CoStar product,” the complaint states.
“Mr. Kaminsky’s conduct is not only unrelated to CoStar’s business, but goes to the core of CoStar’s important business objectives and its role within CoStar, which is to create quality content to drive website traffic to residential real estate listing websites.” Cummings The documents and information Mr. Key had access to would certainly benefit CoStar’s high-priority goals of creating quality content and increasing online traffic to Homes.com,” the complaint adds.
The indictment also accuses Kaminsky of committing “commitment fraud” by violating “multiple promises” he made in his contract with Move. This includes his return of all materials belonging to Move after he leaves the company.
“This promise was intentionally false and was designed to induce Move to rely on Mr. Kaminsky’s false promises,” the filing said. “When he made these promises, Mr. Kaminsky was already making unauthorized promises. Actively accessed Move’s files and established a system that would allow him to gain unauthorized access to Move’s electronic files in the future. Mr. Kaminski also violated the law by unauthorized access to Move’s electronic files stored on a protected computer system. Federal and State Computer Fraud Laws.
Move seeks compensatory, statutory, exemplary and punitive damages and permanent injunctive relief “to prohibit CoStar Group, Inc. and James Kaminsky from further use or disclosure of Move’s trade secrets and confidential information and to return all such information to Move.” and costs and fees.
Unlike the original complaint, the amended complaint does not allege that Homes.com was trying to create a “news and insights” vertical product similar to Realtor.com, and that Kaminsky and CoStar were using information he allegedly stole from Realtor.com to build it product.
CoStar Group general counsel Gene Boxer responded to the amended complaint in a statement. house line.
“Move’s case is playing out. Backward. Under the threat of sanctions, Move has now withdrawn its core allegation: that CoStar was using Move’s trade secrets to develop rival news products to compete with Move.
“We have stated from the outset that Move’s lawsuit against CoStar is a PR stunt. Move’s withdrawal proves our point. Move is attempting to bully a dedicated and long-serving employee and use the courts to deflect attention from its role in the market. Focus on the fact that CoStar is losing. Usually, bullies run away when confronted, but that’s what happened here, and CoStar won’t stop until Move takes full responsibility.
