Blackburn demands Ticketmaster explain if it misled Congress about resale bots | Latest Tech News
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) demanded Ticketmaster explain whether or not it misled Congress in 2023 about its handling of bot scalpers – days after the Federal Trade Commission sued the company for allegedly turning a blind eye to online price gouging.
The FTC’s bombshell lawsuit last month accused Ticketmaster and mum or dad Live Nation of charging exorbitant charges on online gross sales, permitting bots to illegally resell tens of millions of tickets and colluding with third-party brokers by letting them exceed ticket buy limits.
In a scathing letter despatched to Ticketmaster CFO Joe Berchtold late Tuesday, Blackburn expressed “grave concerns” about the allegations and cited testimony in 2023 in which Berchtold claimed the company was “doing everything we can to fight the people who attack our sales and steal tickets meant for real fans.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) demanded to know whether or not Live Nation misled Congress about its practices. Getty Images
“It is astounding that you would make such a claim while actively colluding with scalpers and bad actors to extort the American public,” Blackburn said in the letter, which was also signed by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).
“Instead of casting blame on any entity other than Ticketmaster, we urge you to be forthright with Congress and the American public about the extent of your complicity in allowing bots to buy up and hoard massive amounts of tickets,” Blackburn added.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation didn’t immediately return a request for remark.
As The Post reported, the lawsuit has the potential to financially cripple Ticketmaster.
Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2023. JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
The FTC is in search of billions of {dollars} in penalties under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, or BOTS Act, which permits fines of $53,000 per violation.
“The total amount of fines are potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars,” a source close to the state of affairs said.
Blackburn and other lawmakers stepped up scrutiny of Ticketmaster’s practices in half because of a fiasco in which the company mishandled gross sales of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.” The incident sparked a wave of lawsuits from disgruntled “Swifties.”
That scrutiny culminated in a 2023 listening to by the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Blackburn calling Live Nation’s incapacity to deal with its bot drawback “unbelievable.”
Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold testified in 2023 that the company did every part it may to stop bots. JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
“When pressed on the issue of cybersecurity protections, you seemed dumbfounded and argued that LiveNation spent over a billion dollars investing in site protections against bots,” Blackburn wrote in the letter to Berchtold.
The Republican cited a number of factors that surfaced in the FTC’s lawsuit, including an inner electronic mail in which a senior Ticketmaster government said the company “turn[ed] a blind eye as a matter of policy” when brokers and their bots purchased up ticket stock.
President Trump and Kid Rock spearheaded an initiative to crack down on ticket bot resellers. AFP via Getty Images
Blackburn demanded Ticketmaster present solutions to a number of questions in writing by Oct. 14, including whether or not the company stands by its earlier assertion that it doesn’t “turn a blind eye” to violations of the BOTS Act in gentle of the allegations raised by the FTC.
Ticketmaster was also pressed to explain whether or not it has “ever purposefully relax[ed] enforcement of ticket limits for certain buyers or brokers for financial gain,” as effectively as why it invests tens of millions in anti-bot technology despite allegedly colluding with brokers who circumvent it.
The FTC filed go well with against Ticketmaster just a few months after President Trump issued an government order directing the feds to step up enforcement of the BOTS Act and other measures meant to defend shoppers from dangerous ticket sale practices.
Trump appeared alongside musician Kid Rock in the Oval Office to tout the initiative.
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