Today TELUS Advertising Services provides internet access to Alberta's residential listings on alberta.com. TELUS has also tried to negotiate the placement of this information on canada411 with MediaLynx. Medialinx is the company which manages the Canada411 site which appears as part of the Sympatico site. One condition TELUS put forward was that the information feed be provided through TELUS Advertising Services (TAS) and alberta.com. This way TELUS could ensure it properly reflected the needs of our customers. As an example, (TAS) gets requests to remove listings, or modify listings (particularly to remove the address and replace it with the municipality only) from the residential listing feed. Additionally, and to the best of my knowledge, TAS is the only company in North America that has built a security process around residential listings which ensure that you, or your household, are the only ones that can modify or remove your on-line residential listing information. You can try this out by looking up your own name on alberta.com and selecting the "update listing" button. This will then ask you to input your residential account code (nine digit code found on your TELUS Residential Services bill. Once the proper account is has been validated you may modify your listing as mentioned previously, or add your e-mail address at no charge (this capability ensures that no one other than yourself can put their e-mail address against your listing information).
In conjunction with this capability, TELUS ensures that the residential listing feed does not present listings which include, Non-published numbers, non-listed numbers or CDMR - people who have requested their listings be removed from information lists.
By managing the information in one place, we ensure the most accurate representation of your data is made available regardless of how many places the information might appear.
Our attempt to participate with "canada411" was refused. We welcome canada411 to link directly to our residential site - but they have not. In the mean time TELUS will continue to work on an appropriate solution. I hope this helps you understand the situation a bit more. If you have any questions, please e-mail me at Dallas Stoesz.
Best regards,
Dallas Stoesz
Sawka.com thanks Alberta.com, via Dallas Stoesz, for providing this information for our site visitors.