FTC Probes Ticketmaster For BOTS Act Non-Compliance: Report

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Live Nation and Ticketmaster are doing enough to stop bots on the platform and if the ticketing giant is in compliance with the BOTS Act, the rarely enforced 2016 law meant to curtail the use of bots for buying tickets online, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg reports that the investigation — which sources told the site are in the “advanced stage” — also seeks to determine if Ticketmaster has a financial incentive to turn a blind eye to the use of bots on its site. A determination of legal action could come within a matter of weeks, according to the report

“We haven’t violated the BOTS Act and will vigorously defend any such claims,” said a spokesperson for Ticketmaster in a statement to Reuters. “However, we would prefer to work with the FTC to implement policies to improve the ticketing industry. … We believe the FTC has a fundamental misunderstanding of Ticketmaster’s policies and is taking an excessively expansionist view of the BOTS Act.”

The spokesperson told Reuters Ticketmaster blocks more than 200 million bots per day.

Last month, the FTC sued Key Investment Group, the owner of several ticket resale sites, alleging violations of the BOTS Act. The feds alleged Key used “thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to purchase tickets,” “utilizing thousands of virtual and traditional credit card numbers” and used spoofed IP addresses and mobile phone numbers to “purchase at least 379,776 tickets in just over a year from Ticketmaster at a cost of nearly $57 million,” and reselling them for more than $64 million. In an earlier filing that sought to enjoin the suit, Key essentially admitted to the tactics, saying they are common in the secondary space and that Ticketmaster is aware of them and does not stop them.

Key claimed it could not be charged with BOTS Act violations because it only used digital tools with human users, rather than “bots,” to purchase tickets and said 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.