The FTC and seven states have sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for allegedly “deceptive” ticket resale tactics, according to a press release Thursday . The federal regulatory agency says that Ticketmaster is “tacitly coordinating with brokers,” allowing them to buy millions of dollars worth of tickets, just to resell them at a higher cost to the person who actually wants to attend a given concert.
The FTC says Ticketmaster is also aware of ticket brokers regularly bypassing security measures by creating accounts using proxy IP addresses and, beyond that, offers tech support to brokers through software called TradeDesk which helps brokers track and aggregate purchases from multiple accounts. The interface allows resellers to manage resales much easier.
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