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California District Judge George H. Wu issued another ruling in CoStar Group’s favor on Monday, according to court documents.
Wu granted CoStar’s motion to dismiss the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CCDAFA) against CoStar and Realtor.com News & Insights editor James Kaminsky, who is accused of accessing Move-owned documents approximately 40 times after being laid off in January.
Move said Kaminsky allegedly used those documents to boost Homes.com’s traffic and search engine optimization (SEO), causing more than $5,000 in damages — the threshold for CFAA private claim, lawyers charged.
However, Wu said Move’s counsel failed to provide sufficient facts to uphold the CFAA and CCDAFA claims against Kaminsky.
“The Court is not aware of any other allegation elsewhere in the FAC that provides any more detail, or facts, in support of a “damage or loss” allegation tied to Plaintiffs’ CFAA and/or CCDAFA claims,” the court document read. “Plaintiffs attempt to claim that paragraphs 57-58 and 60 provide ‘factual support’ for their conclusory ‘loss’ allegation.”
“But those paragraphs merely reveal, at most, that Plaintiffs ‘discovered’ certain things and ‘cut off’ access, providing no facts concerning the manner of that discovery/cutting off, or what resources went into it,” it continued. “They certainly do not include allegations of ‘expending significant resources responding to and assessing Mr. Kaminsky’s breach,’ an assertion they make in their Opposition brief.”
Gene Boxer | Credit: CoStar
CoStar Group General Counsel Gene Boxer said the dismissal of the CFAA and CCDAFA claims further proves Move’s lawsuit is simply an attempt to “lash out” at CoStar and Homes.com for its success.
“CoStar is grateful that the Court granted its motion to dismiss Move’s statutory trade secrets claims. As we have said all along, Move’s case is a sham,” he said in an emailed statement to Inman. “Nothing more than a transparent attempt by the operator of the flailing Realtor.com to lash out at Homes.com, which has far surpassed Move’s website in the marketplace.”
Boxer went on to cite a class-action lawsuit against Move for allegedly selling unvetted and bogus leads to buyer’s agents through its portfolio of lead generation products. Move has vehemently denied the claims listed in the lawsuit, which is still moving through the courts. Move has been sued twice before over its leads; however, both cases were dismissed.
“Brokers love Homes.com, and its ‘your listing, your lead’ model. Realtor.com’s approach of selling off leads is bad for brokers, and bad for consumers,” he added. “After yet another reversal in Court against CoStar, Move should drop its nonsensical case, focus on fixing its broken business model, and spend its legal fees on defending the class action lawsuit that accuses Realtor.com of selling fake leads to brokers.”
Although Wu dismissed Move’s CFAA and CCDAFA claims, it doesn’t mean CoStar nor Kaminsky is off the hook. Move’s counsel can fix the dismissed claims and include them in a second amended complaint.
A Realtor.com spokesperson said the company isn’t disheartened by Wu’s ruling, which did take a few swipes at CoStar’s counsel’s reasoning for requesting the dismissal of the CFAA and CCDAFA claims. The fact that Wu offered the opportunity to amend the filing, the spokesperson said, means there’s still room for Move’s counsel to win the case.
“We plan to proceed with all six of our claims after making minor adjustments, per the judge’s instructions,” the spokesperson told Inman in a statement. “We look forward to moving ahead with our claims in the discovery process and having our day in court.”
Wu’s ruling is the latest chapter in a months-long legal battle between CoStar and Move.
Move sued CoStar and Kaminsky in July, claiming that Kaminsky accessed a number of Move-owned files — which included News & Insights team salary and bonuses, an ongoing list of Realtor.com News & Insights stories, a “2022 or 2023” presentation on audience and revenue projections, and two other files with passwords to third-party subscriptions, WordPress instructions, and staff contact numbers — and used them to bolster Homes.com’s performance.
Kaminsky admitted to accessing the documents to gather personal information but denied sharing them with anyone at CoStar or Homes.com. The files, he said, had no use in his new position as the manager for a team that writes listing descriptions for high-end condominium and co-op buildings in NYC.
Throughout August and September, Move’s counsel pushed for a preliminary injunction to stop CoStar and Kaminsky’s alleged continued access to and use of “unauthorized files.” However, Wu decided Move failed to prove the risk of “imminent, irreparable harm” since they rescinded a motion for an expedited discovery — the very thing that could’ve given them the facts needed to support their claim.
“Move’s failure to take advantage of the opportunity for discovery has allowed it to either a) consider only what it believes it already knows about Kaminsky’s conduct before this lawsuit was filed (none of which involves actual disclosure of anything to CoStar) to form the basis for what Move believes [or] speculates Kaminsky might do with CoStar going forward,” Wu said in a Sept. 23 motion.
Before Monday’s ruling, CoStar Group and Move filed a Joint Report detailing a tentative discovery and pre-trial schedule. Both parties pitched a trial date of March 23, 2026; however, Wu fast-tracked the schedule to Aug. 19, 2025.
Read Wu’s dismissal below:
English (US) · 