Secondary Seller Sues FTC To Stop BOTS Act Enforcement

The parent company of a group of ticket resale websites is asking a federal judge to block the Federal Trade Commission from enforcing the BOTS Act, saying that its practices are standard in the secondary ticketing industry and don’t violate the nine-year-old, rarely enforced legislation.

Key Investment Group — which operates Totaltickets.com, Totally Tickets and Front Rose Tickets — says the FTC opened an investigation into its practices in December 2023 and that it complied with the commission’s investigatory demands. In March 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order focused on the live industry which, among other things, called for more aggressive enforcement of the BOTS Act.

“Minutes following the issuance of the President’s Executive Order and accompanying Fact Sheet, [the FYC] sent [Key Investment Group] a one count Draft Complaint, alleging that Key Investment Group and the Individual Plaintiffs violated the BOTS Act,” KIG’s lawsuit, filed July 21 in U.S. District Court for Maryland, alleges.

KIG says the FTC told the company it could avoid prosecution if it admitted to the violations, but would otherwise face “tens of millions of dollars” in penalties. KIG refused, instead insisting that the methods it uses to secure tickets from Ticketmaster are, in fact, standard practice in compliance with both Ticketmaster’s policies and federal law, including the BOTS Act.

Those methods include having employees purchase tickets using numerous pseudonymous email addresses, using multiple SIM cards for mobile or seemingly mobile purchases and employing a web browser that creates unique IP addresses for every open tab, essentially allowing it to appear as if multiple computers or cell phones are being used, despite all being operated by a single user on a single platform. These practices, KIG says, are widespread in the secondary industry and, the suit further alleges, do not break the BOTS Acts prohibition against “circumvent(ing) a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure on an Internet website or online service that is used by the ticket issuer to enforce posted event ticket purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules.”

The lawsuit cites the legislative history of the BOTS Act in which lawmakers repeatedly emphasized the law is targeting automated software that bypasses waiting rooms, subverts CAPTCHAs and otherwise circumvents the terms and conditions of a primary ticketing site. KIG says because it uses actual humans — albeit ones abetted by software — it cannot be charged with a BOTS Act violation. Further, KIG says, Ticketmaster does not actually “enforce posted event ticket purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules,” and that Ticketmaster is “well aware” of the various tools used by the secondary industry, including the IP-spoofing browser, multiple SIM cards and pseudonymous accounts.

“Ticketmaster is and has been at all times aware of Key Investment Group’s use of multiple accounts, some of which use pseudonyms. Ticketmaster has both expressly and impliedly authorized KIG’s use of same,” the suit continues, by way of example.

The suit asks the judge for a declaratory judgment that KIG is not in violation of the BOTS Act, in large part because, they say, Ticketmaster does not “enforce” limits or “maintain the integrity” of its rules as required by statute; and a further declaration that even if KIG is in violation, it did not have requisite knowledge required to know that it was. It also seeks an injunction barring the FTC from charging KIG with BOTS Act violations and from assessing civil penalties. Further, KIG is asking a judge to declare the BOTS Act unconstitutionally vague.

The FTC has not yet filed a response, but the National Independent Talent Organization issued a statement of its own, encouraging the FTC to fight the suit.

“If KIG doesn’t think multi-account behavior violates the BOTS Act, they should go back and read the law. NITO is encouraged to see the FTC continue to crack down on BOTS Act violators and will happily assist their efforts anyway we can,” NITO executive director Nathaniel Marro said in a statement.