LendingTree rumorville has been making some recent noise.

First, lets start with items that are not rumors. This Monday marked the last days at Tree.com for both the CMO and CTO. Both apparently resigned from their positions at Tree.com two weeks and are now on to bigger and better things. Good luck to them both.

These resignations are fairly strange in my opinion, though. To have two key positions resign on the same day leads people to make a number of speculations. Did they really resign or were they asked to leave? Is the company simply cutting employees with high salaries, regardless of the persons contributions? This would seem strange, in light of LT renewing its PGA partnership in a year where PGA viewership will be way down with the absence of Tiger Woods on tour. Who knows, maybe they received a significant discount for the sponsorship this year.

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While all the hoopla went on today about the new iPad a smaller Apple application was released.

Today LendingTree released their own iPhone application called the “mortgage rate finder”. This new app allows iPhone users to shop mortgage rates on their phone. Frankly, not all that exciting. I am not really sure how you make searching for mortgage rates exciting and this app probably won’t make the top 25 list for free apps either, but I think the app can be useful for some.

Here are a few images of the application.

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There is nothing worse then being laid off, I know personally. I also know there is nothing worse then having to lay people off. What I don’t know first hand is having to go through either of these two scenarios right before Christmas.

Unfortunately, Tree.com employees, approximately 70 or so , were laid off today and know that there is nothing worse then being laid off right before Christmas. First, I hope the best for these people and hope that this turns into a blessing rather then a curse.

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Last week Mortech put out a press release announcing that there were big things to come in 2010 from their company. The release follows the dismissal of a lawsuit brought on by former business partner LendingTree. We all know about the LendingTree/Mortech suit so there is no need to go into it again, but if you are not aware you can get your self caught up here and here.

This announcement is interesting and humorous at the same time, because clearly has an underlying  agenda. Here is what I interpreted it to be saying, “Yeah, we got the shake down from LT. Yes, they don’t want to work with us any longer, but we are still going to serve their clients and guess what, we are still going to work with Search Engines. In fact, we are also going to take our technology and build out our own rate marketplace and compete directly against you.” This was no kiss and make up press release. Here are a few key snippets:

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Big news today.

As reported early LendingTree has dropped the lawsuit against Mortech. The lawsuit claimed that Mortech broke the confidentiality agreement between the two companies and infringed on their contract by working with Google on their new mortgage rate tables. This lawsuit leaked news that Google is currently working on a U.S. based mortgage rate table that could possibly open the door into the lead generation industry for Google.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LendingTree, LLC and Mortech, Inc. have resolved their lawsuit to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, and the lawsuit has been dismissed.

More details to come.

I don’t have the privilege of attending the LendingTree Summits, but this year I was able to follow the daily happenings via good’ol Twitter! So here is a ValleyWag type twitter summation of what went down at this years event in Las Vegas courtesy of these twitterers:

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Over a year ago Google began testing a mortgage rate search within their Merchant Search platform in the UK. Not much more then a few blog post here and there discussed the new search tool. Most couldn’t imagine it going much further then just a simple test and the fact that it was circled around generating calls, not specifically data leads, added to the passive concern of so many.

With the new LendingTree suit against Mortech and the revelation of Google’s continued interest in breaking into the mortgage lead generation industry it has proven that the UK test was not performed on a whim and they did have long term intentions. What can be debated is what those intentions truly are. I think to do this we have take a look at more then simply the disheveled mortgage lead generation industry, but the online marketing industry as a whole.

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It was all over the Internet today that LendingTree has filed a lawsuit against service provider and 2008 “Innovator of the Year” , Mortech. The suit accuses Mortech of contract infringement and breaking their confidentiality agreement.

About two years ago LendingTree partnered with Mortech and recently became aware of their communications and possible partnership with the Google, whom over the past year has been quietly figuring out the real estate and mortgage lead generation industry. This suit may have inadvertently leaked the launch of a Google’s rate table application and lead generation process. This project has been rumored for a while and is an interesting topic on its own, but clearly is a threat to the mortgage lead gen world and more specifically LendingTree. This suit, while directed at Mortech, could be a foot in the door for LT to stall the launch of the new Google service. The reality is that there are a number of Mortech like companies and the actual pricing engine technology is not proprietary to just Mortech. If LendingTree can somehow prove that Mortech leaked information about LendingTree developments and future plans or have possibly used their knowledge learned from LendingTree to benefit Google, they may be able to throw a wrench into Google’s plans indefinitely.

“We will vigorously protect our contractual rights, our company, our customers and our clients in this matter,” CEO Doug Lebda said in a statement.

Regardless of the motives, LT seems to think they have a strong enough case to take this past the initial, “please, stop doing that” requests.

So what do you think? Is this all to disrupt Google’s plan to enter into the lead gen business or is this only a Mortech and LendingTree contract infringement case and that’s it?

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