Now, after getting the backing of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, creator Kate Wagner can claim victory after the Seattle-based real estate media company said it won’t pursue further legal action.
“We have decided not to pursue any legal action against Kate Wagner and McMansion Hell,” a statement from the company said Thursday. “We’ve had a lot of conversations about this, including with attorneys from the EFF, whose advocacy and work we respect. EFF has stated that McMansion Hell won’t use photos from Zillow moving forward. It was never our intent for McMansion Hell to shut down, or for this to appear as an attack on Kate’s freedom of expression. We acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our partners — the agents and brokers who entrust us to display photos of their clients’ homes.”
The Zillow response came in the wake of the week’s events and a strongly worded letter to Zillow general counsel Brad Owens on Thursday (PDF here, and in full below). EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer said, “Our client has no obligation to, and thus will not, comply with Zillow’s demands. Zillow’s legal threats are not supported and plainly seek to interfere with protected speech.”
