Dive Brief:

• The Federal Aviation Administration proposed its long-awaited guidelines for the commercial use of drones last week, but plenty of businesses—large and small—have been ignoring the agency’s near-ban on their use for years.

• The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Walmart, BMW, General Mills, Nike, and others have long used drones to shoot videos that the firms have shown on TV commercials.

• The newspaper named commercial construction companies Balfour Beatty, Webcor, and DPR Construction among those that have used drones to monitor and photograph job sites. Some are using the pictures to create three-dimensional models of project sites, The Journal reported.

Dive Insight:

Some real estate agents and homebuilders have illegally used drones to shoot photos of homes for sale for promotional purposes. And while a number of small businesses have received FAA warnings, the agency has fined very few, according to The Journal.

Contractors and Realtors have said using drones is an inexpensive way to get birds-eye photography of properties and provide clients with up-to-the minute video progress reports.