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Zillow and Redfin make a deal with the feds: The two Seattle companies reached a settlement with the FTC and five states, just as the antitrust trial over their $100 million multifamily rentals partnership was set to begin. Redfin is required to relaunch the apartment advertising business it shut down under the partnership, with Zillow’s help. The listings syndication between the companies continues. Zillow, Redfin and the FTC are all declaring victory.
Washington’s privacy gap: More than 20 states have passed privacy legislation modeled on a bill Washington state lawmakers introduced in 2019, but the state still has no comprehensive privacy law of its own. The effort has stalled for seven years over one question: whether consumers should be able to sue companies that break the rules. Attorney General Nick Brown released his first data privacy report earlier this month, calling on the Legislature to act.
Data centers and decarbonization: In our latest Sustainability Spotlight, McKinstry chief client officer Matt Allen says surging energy demand for computing has him worried about maintaining progress on emissions. He names fusion and geothermal as the technologies he’d fast-forward if he could, and explains why the Seattle company’s biggest carbon problem is its own fleet of 600 service vans and 300 utility trucks.
An opinionated AI glossary: Everyone in tech says things like LLM, open weights, RAG and agent; far fewer could define precisely what they all mean. In his latest column, computer scientist and entrepreneur Oren Etzioni sorts out about 30 AI terms in plain English, with a blunt verdict on each and one novel phrase he believes isn’t used enough. See if you can spot it.
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