Judge Says FTC BOTS Act Case Against Reseller Can Proceed

A federal judge ruled this week that the Federal Trade Commission’s BOTS Act-based suit against a Maryland ticket reseller can proceed.

U.S. District Court Judge George Levi Russell III found that the BOTS Act — a much-referenced but rarely utilized law meant to curb automated purchasing of tickets — can apply to nonautomated purchases. Key Investment Group, the company behind resale sites TotalTickets.com and Front Rose Tix, had argued 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.

In his ruling, Russell said he was “unconvinced” that the FTC prosecution was inconsistent with the law’s language.

“The statute unambiguously applies to ‘any person’ and not just to ‘bots,’” he wrote, saying the elevated ticket prices could be caused “either by ‘bots,’ or humans who write the code behind the ‘bots,’ or individuals who work in concert to recreate what bots otherwise accomplish.”

In one win for the reseller, Russell ruled that its defense that Ticketmaster at best turned a blind eye to its tactics and worst acquiesced, therefore making Key’s actions not a violation of the terms of service as required by the act, could be argued at a later date.

The FTC says 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.

“For just one Taylor Swift concert, the defendants allegedly used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets, dramatically exceeding the Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket purchase limit per event. They then resold those tickets at a significant markup,” the FTC said.