CoStar Group
Real Estate
64
out of 100. Number 83 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where CoStar Group does well
- Renewals 4 of 20. Few problems found.
- No forced arbitration — disputes go to real courts (Virginia), not a private arbitrator, which is better than most consumer sites.
- The privacy notice discloses the data 'sale' and targeted advertising up front in a summary (not buried), honors Global Privacy Control as an opt-out, and explicitly states they will not discriminate against users who exercise privacy rights.
- The privacy notice prevails over the Terms of Service where they conflict on data.
- They state automated decision-making is not used for decisions with legal or similarly significant effects, biometric data is not collected on the marketplace sites, and Illinois BIPA written consent is required before any biometric collection.
CoStar openly admits it sells your personal information — contact details, IP addresses, geolocation, and your browsing/purchase history on their sites — to advertising and analytics networks for targeted ads.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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CoStar openly admits it sells your personal information — contact details, IP addresses, geolocation, and your browsing/purchase history on their sites — to advertising and analytics networks for targeted ads. An apartment hunter's search history is a product they sell.
"CoStar sells personal information and uses it for targeted advertising (or 'sharing' in California)… In the past year, CoStar has sold, or used for targeted advertising, contact details, online identifiers, IP addresses, non-precise geolocation data, information derived from your use of our Services (such as information about properties or services purchased or considered), and professional information for CoStar Products."
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CoStar collects session-replay style recordings of how you use their sites — literal video clips of your cursor movements, scrolling, and downloads. They can watch exactly how you browse listings.
"user interactions (including video clips of your online interactions such as cursor movements, scrolling activity, or downloads)"
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Just by using the site you give blanket consent to robocalls and texts at any hour, any day. Separately, submitting a lead form means landlords and managers 'may contact you via email, text message, phone or autodialer for any purpose.'
"You expressly consent to receiving calls and messages, including auto-dialed and pre-recorded message calls, and SMS messages… at any telephone numbers that You have provided or may provide in the future… at any time of day and on any day of the year."
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No class actions ever. Disputes are governed by Delaware law, must be filed in Virginia courts only, and you lose your claim entirely if you don't file within one year — shorter than most statutes of limitations.
"all causes of action arising out of or connected with this Site shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action… any cause of action You may have with respect to the Site must be exclusively filed in the federal or state courts located in Virginia, within one (1) year after the cause of action arises or the cause is barred."
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Anything you submit — photos, descriptions, reviews — they can use forever, even after you leave, including your name and face, with no payment and no take-backs. Deleting your account does not revoke this license.
"You hereby grant to Apartments.com, its affiliates, and its parent and related companies a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, fully transferable, fully sublicenseable right and license to copy, modify, display, distribute, perform, create derivative works from, store, and otherwise use and exploit all such Content… You further grant… a royalty-free right and license to use your name, image and likeness in connection with the reproduction or distribution of the Content."
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They can rewrite the rules at any time with nothing more than posting them on a page; simply continuing to browse counts as agreeing. The privacy notice similarly applies changes 'as of the updated date' with no opt-in.
"These Terms of Service may be changed at any time and You will be notified of any such changes by an updated posting of the new Terms of Service on this page of the Site. Your continued use of the Site after the posting of any amended Terms of Service shall constitute your agreement to be bound by any such changes."
How these were found
Documents read directly via browser_open on the official CoStar-owned domain (no mirrors used): Apartments.com Terms of Service, last updated July 11, 2025; CoStar Global Privacy Notice, last updated July 15, 2025. The privacy notice applies to all CoStar Marketplaces (Apartments.com, LoopNet, Homes.com, Ten-X, etc.) and CoStar Products. Paid-product subscription terms (CoStar Suite, LoopNet advertiser contracts) were not reviewed, so auto-renew scoring is low-confidence; the consumer marketplace side is free, which limits auto-renew exposure. Scores are editorial judgment grounded in the quoted clauses.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.