Zillow Group, Inc. yesterday said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had concluded its investigation into the online real estate company's marketing practices, MarketWatch.com reported. The agency had opened an inquiry into Zillow's practice of allowing real estate agents and other professionals, like lenders, to share the cost of advertising on its site, in 2017. Regulators were concerned that this practice, called "co-marketing," violated a 1974 rule called the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act that keeps service providers from funneling customers to each other in exchange for kickbacks. "On June 22, 2018, the Company received a letter from the Bureau stating that it had completed its investigation, that it did not intend to take enforcement action, and that the Company was relieved from the document-retention obligations required by the Bureau's investigation," Zillow said in an SEC filing.
