Zillow Still Blocking Matterport 3D Tours Seven Months Into CoStar Dispute

Zillow is still refusing to display Matterport 3D tours on its platform, and the standoff between Zillow and CoStar — which acquired Matterport in April 2024 — shows no sign of a quick resolution. The dispute has now stretched more than seven months, with both companies trading public statements but no binding agreement in place.

How a Terms-of-Service Dispute Became a Standoff Over Legal Liability

Zillow first removed Matterport tours from its site in October 2025, citing concerns about Matterport's updated terms of service. Zillow's position has remained consistent: the language in those terms is ambiguous enough to expose Zillow to legal risk if it continues hosting the content. The company has asked CoStar to provide clear, publicly facing terms that explicitly authorize Zillow to display Matterport media — and says those terms have never been delivered.

CoStar and Matterport push back hard on that framing. On May 27, 2026, Matterport president Rob Hines issued a direct public statement saying his company has told Zillow, both in public and through private correspondence, that Matterport customers have always had the right to post their tours wherever they choose. Hines went further, offering a signed declaration — including an all-caps pledge — that CoStar will not sue Zillow for displaying Matterport tours created by customers.

Zillow's response, according to HousingWire's reporting, was to point back to a LinkedIn post from the previous week: CoStar, Zillow says, has refused to sign a formal, executed legal pledge not to sue. A public statement and a signed declaration are not the same thing as a legally binding commitment, Zillow argues, and given that CoStar is currently engaged in a separate copyright infringement lawsuit against Zillow over listing media, the company is not willing to take CoStar's word for it.

CoStar CEO Andy Florance noted last week that both Homes.com and Realtor.com are currently showing Matterport tours without issue. That distinction matters for sellers trying to understand where their listing media will — and won't — appear.

Where Matterport Tours Do and Don't Show Up Right Now

The practical picture for sellers is uneven. Matterport 3D tours are currently visible on Homes.com and Realtor.com. They are not appearing on Zillow, which removed them in October 2025 and has been routing around the problem by accepting tours from other third-party vendors. Zillow has also been promoting its own product, Zillow 3D Home, as an alternative during this period.

That means if your listing agent shoots a Matterport tour and syndicates it to the MLS, the tour may flow through to some major platforms but go dark on Zillow — which remains one of the highest-traffic real estate search destinations in the country. Whether that gap costs a given seller depends on the market, the price point, and how much buyer traffic flows through Zillow versus competing portals in your area. But it is a real gap, and sellers deserve to know it exists before committing to a tour format.

What Sellers Should Ask Before Booking a 3D Tour

If you're preparing to list, 3D tours remain a strong marketing tool — buyers who engage with them tend to spend more time on a listing and arrive at showings better informed. The question right now isn't whether to use a 3D tour. It's which platform your tour will be created on and where it will actually display.

Here's what to confirm with your agent or photographer before you book:

• Which platform is the tour being created on? Matterport, iGUIDE, Kuula, and others are all in use. Only Matterport is affected by this dispute.
• Which portals will the tour appear on? Get a direct answer. If your agent says Zillow and your tour is Matterport-based, that's not accurate as of today.
• Is a Zillow 3D Home tour available instead or in addition? Zillow's own tour product is still supported on its platform. Some agents are now producing both formats.
• Is this dispute likely to resolve before your listing goes live? Both sides are publicly dug in. Don't plan around a resolution that hasn't happened.

If Zillow exposure is a priority for your sale — particularly in markets where Zillow drives significant buyer traffic — this is a practical factor worth building into your listing strategy today, not something to sort out after your photographer has already come and gone.

The Bigger Issue: Platform Control Over Your Listing's Visibility

The Zillow-CoStar dispute is a reminder that sellers don't fully control where their listing content appears. Media formats, syndication agreements, and corporate legal disputes between platforms can all affect which buyers see what. That's not new — MLS syndication has always involved intermediaries — but it's becoming more visible as the major portals compete more aggressively with each other for listing data and proprietary tools.

CoStar has been expanding Homes.com's footprint and challenging Zillow's dominance in search traffic. The Matterport situation is partly a product of that competition: CoStar owns a tour technology company, Zillow has its own tour product, and neither has much incentive to make the other's format look better on their platform. Sellers are caught in the middle.

Understanding which platforms your listing is actually reaching — and in what format — is part of marketing your home well. If you want a clear picture of what buyers see when they search for properties like yours, that's exactly the kind of question worth asking before you sign a listing agreement. Local Home Buyers USA's instant-offer tool can also give you a baseline on value independent of how any single platform is displaying your home.