The half of California's AB 723 that nobody implements

`California's AB 723 has been in force since January 1, 2026. It amends Business & Professions Code § 10140.8 and it applies to any real estate listing image that has been digitally altered. Virtual staging is the obvious case, but the definition is wider than that. The rule has two parts: A statement that the image has been altered, "reasonably conspicuous" and placed on or adjacent to the image. A link to a publicly accessible URL, or a QR code, that includes and clearly identifies the original, unaltered image. Everyone builds the first part. It is a text label on a photo, an afternoon of work. The second part is a small piece of infrastructure: a permanent public URL, per image, that outlives the tab the agent had open when they exported. I build a virtual staging product, so I had to ship both. This is how the second part is put together, and the one thing I got wrong. What counts as altered Worth getting right before writing any code, because it decides which of your features need the label and which do not. Subsection (b)(2) carves out ordinary photo editing. Covered: Adding furniture, rugs, art or decor Removing furniture, clutter or personal items Changing paint, flooring or wall finishes Sky replacement and day to dusk Greening or reshaping lawns and landscaping Anything that changes the facade or the property itself Not covered: Exposure, lighting, white balance, color correction Sharpening Straightening, cropping, angle In the codebase that line is a set, and the two omissions are deliberate: ts export const TOOLS_ALTERING_LISTING_IMAGES = new Set([ "virtual-staging", "sky-replacement", "day-to-dusk", "grass-greener", "declutter", "object-remover", ]); image-enhancer is out because exposure and white balance are precisely what the statute excludes. A floor plan generator is out because a diagram is not an altered photograph. Attaching a legal claim to a feature the law does not cover is not a harmless extra: it is the fastest way to make the rest of your