The founder and chief executive of Expert Agent, whose sale to ZPG was announced this week, has admitted that the deal came as a “complete surprise” to both him and his colleagues.
The admission was made in an email yesterday afternoon to customers, which we have seen.
In it, however, Mike Griffiths also expressed confidence in ZPG as the new owners, assured agents that their data is safe, and that his firm will continue to operate as an independent brand.
Griffiths, managing director of Websky, launched Expert Agent in 2004.
He sold the business to new owners, private equity firm Metropolis International, in 2013, meaning that after that time Expert Agent was no longer his to sell.
While he has had no shares in the business for the last three years, he stayed on to develop and run Expert Agent – said to be the largest of the software suppliers in the industry.
He has in the past made much of the value of independence.
Yesterday afternoon, in an email we have seen Griffiths wrote to customers, some of whom he said had accused him of “selling out”.
In his email, he said that after the news broke on Wednesday morning: “I have had a number of emails from our members – some congratulating us, some accusing me of ‘selling out’ and many asking some very sensible and direct questions. I wanted to write to you to address some of these issues.
“As many of you know, my partners, investors and I sold 100% of Expert Agent to a private equity firm back in 2013. This was a good move as they helped us to continue to develop and grow.
“The team and I remained in place following this sale and we continued to deliver the products and services you have come to expect from us.
“Yesterday’s sale by the private equity firm to ZPG (whilst a complete surprise to my colleagues and me) doesn’t change anything in this regard.
“Actually, with ZPG as our new owners, we are confident that the development will not only continue but investment will be accelerated.”
Griffiths went on to address other points, saying: “Expert Agent will continue to operate as an independent brand and platform.
“Our Frome office and all our staff (including me) are staying with the business.”
He continued: “Your data is safe and secure and will not be used for any purposes other than providing you with the Expert Agent services and will NOT be available to any other parties.
“You will not be forced into taking any other ZPG products. You may be offered new services over time but it will be entirely up to you as to whether you wish to take these up.
“Your feeds to other portals will continue as normal and nothing will change in this regard.”
Griffiths admitted: “Whilst I was initially sceptical about being part of a much larger organisation like ZPG, I can honestly say I have been nothing but impressed about how focused the team at ZPG are about developing the best products and being the best partners for agents.
“I can see some great benefits in this deal for you, our members.
“There are many myths and rumours that swirl in our industry but I can assure you from my interactions with ZPG that they are genuinely agent-focused and I am looking forward to working with them to do lots more with the Expert Agent product to benefit you before I finally hand over the reins, hang up my keyboard, retire and sail off into the sunset in a few years.
“That would be the perfect end to my 30-year career in the estate agency software industry.
“It is ‘business as usual’ for now and I genuinely believe there will be some clear wins for you over time.”
Although I was really disappointed when this happened I like to believe Mike in what he says. After all he sent out an email late last year stating how EA was for the ‘independent agent’ and asking for suggestions for new products. I got as far as having a discussion with them about a major ‘plug in’ idea we have developed that saves us 15 to 20 man hours of time a week. Guess we’ll have to take that idea elsewhere now.
Above all else I would like to see it ‘written into a contract’ supplied to us that any client information data we have recorded on expert agent in the past, or will do so from now on, will be confidential to us and will not be used by Zoopla to sell to YOPA or the like for targeting emails.
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I heard about that YOPA mailshot from someone else. Surely, though, it was an APPLICANT mailout – sent to applicants that have registered on Zoopla. So we can get upset about and argue the morality but that’s Zoopla’s own data and they can use it as they see fit. They’ve presumably sent an email to that data on behalf of YOPA in the same way they send emails for home improvements. Of course, they could have cross-referenced the applicant data with the full addresses of properties uploaded by all of us thereby giving YOPA a more targeted list – properties currently on the market with all of us but I doubt it. I’ll bet the only filtering was on applicants looking at prices sufficiently high to suggest they are making a second or third time buy and so probably have a property to sell. Maybe it is even simpler than that.. does Zoopla ask applicants for their status when they regster? I assume any agent can buy a mailshot like this from Zoopla if their pockets are deep enough. I guess Zoopla will try to do national deals because it saves lots of work carving the data up but maybe we can ask them for something similar at local level. Would we feel the same about a Connells, Countrywide or Knight Frank mailshot? But, the point is, even if they can now illegally peep at it via the software companies they own, they can’t use OUR private data – our applicants, vendors. landlords, tenants etc unless the client agrees and we agree. The penalties for this and the stock market fallout would be huge, wouldn’t it?
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At last! A bit of ****** sense.
Some of the hoo-ha with regards to data privacy on this site has been ridiculous and embarrassing.
The fact is this. Your data is your data. No matter where you enter it, it belongs to YOU and cannot be used by anyone else.
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You haven’t seen or are subject the 3rd party data sharing clauses then? Without a doubt the data belongs to the agent but some agents (quite a lot) have 3rd party data sharing and use clauses they have agreed to without knowledge or understanding that allows the service supplier to access the data and use the data for their (the service supplier) commercial interest. It even warrants the agent has sought permission for the data to be shared in such a way from each individual whose data is shared.
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sorry ‘aren’t’
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Hi Robert
Assuming one had signed a contract with a 3rd part data sharing clause and had not received permission from every client could you notify the service supplier of this and having notified then are they then legally bound not to use the data. If it has been passed to them without relevant permissions, could they ignore that fact and continue to use it? Is notification in the first place enough to stop them from using it.
Possibly a bit too legal a question but your view would be appreciated.
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One for the lawyers but everyone should read T&C’s carefully. My view is the service supplier has dropped you in it big time. Always a wonderful way to treat customers!
Tell the service supplier to stop the service and move to someone who has your interests at heart rather than theirs. .
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where are these 3rd party data sharing clauses? Are they in the Zoopla contract or something to do with the software companies?
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Wherever there is a service contract and data there are data protection clauses that are required to be detailed about the holding and distribution of data.
It doesn’t matter whether it is a portal, valuation system or software system if data is being stored someone is responsible for it, there has to be registration with ICO and a data protection officer whose job it is to ensure compliance with regulations. The DP officer for your firm ought to be aware of all terms and clauses that affect the dissemination of data.
The clauses are everywhere. It is worth having “bait data” entered into systems that way you can identify unauthorised data sharing and track it back to the source using a subject access request
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Oh how funny! someone doesn’t like the idea agents can detect sneaky sorts nicking their data. The biggest balloon popped by the smallest pin.
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I can tell you categorically that whilst at Jupix, the agent’s data was regularly mined, so by association, ZPG are likely to be doing the same. It was a key motivator for developing MoveIT.
A Jupix director once shared with me that they’d run a query on the lettings data across all the agents to see who was behind with their rent. They had come up with the idea that those with arrears would be open to taking on high-interest loans to get themselves out of the situation. An idea that fortunately was abandoned…
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Mike Griffiths was the competition to beat when I first started selling software for agency. I have a good respect for Mike who was always leading change. The industry will miss his input and his sometimes unique way of dealing with the challenges of being a service supplier to a service industry.
I would like to wish Mike all the best for his well earned future.
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