doctrine HARD RULE: an aggregator is never a data source — kill the Redfin residential-broker scrape (Steve 2026-07-31)

ccaba2ee6a34e0f4a6607ce50ad6854413e822e5 · 2026-07-31 08:17:48 -0700 · steve

Files touched

M docs/SOURCING.md

Diff

commit ccaba2ee6a34e0f4a6607ce50ad6854413e822e5
Author: steve <steve@designerwallcoverings.com>
Date:   Fri Jul 31 08:17:48 2026 -0700

    doctrine HARD RULE: an aggregator is never a data source — kill the Redfin residential-broker scrape (Steve 2026-07-31)
---
 docs/SOURCING.md | 9 +++++++++
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)

diff --git a/docs/SOURCING.md b/docs/SOURCING.md
index 9623d89..af0b86a 100644
--- a/docs/SOURCING.md
+++ b/docs/SOURCING.md
@@ -62,6 +62,15 @@ doctrine classifier → the Brokerage facet. Newly-resolved brokers surface with
   suppressed → honest NULL, never fabricated.
 
 ## Hard lines
+- **An aggregator is NEVER a data SOURCE (Steve, 2026-07-31).** Redfin, Zillow, CoStar, CREXi,
+  LoopNet are portals, not the listing company. Do NOT scrape listing facts (agent, price, status)
+  off their pages/APIs to populate our catalog — "otherwise we are scraping data. no." The only
+  legitimate sources of a listing's truth are: (1) the **listing brokerage's own site/feed**, or
+  (2) a **licensed MLS/IDX/RETS feed** we are entitled to. If we can't source a field legitimately,
+  we leave it blank and honestly label it — we do not scrape a portal to fill it.
+- This kills the residential-broker-from-Redfin plan (page-scrape AND Browserbase) entirely, and
+  means the Redfin-sourced SFR/condo inventory is provisional aggregator data pending a legitimate
+  feed — not something to enrich by scraping Redfin harder.
 - Never present an aggregator record as canonical when a broker-of-record is known.
 - Business-contact fields only (CCPA); record `source_url` per enriched field.
 - Firm-direct scraping spend is shown per-run and gated.

← 40ef73d docs: residential (Redfin) sourcing section — writeback path · back to Commercialrealestate · doctrine refined: CREXi/Redfin = discover broker+firm ONLY; 4de252a →