Taylor Swift ticket troubles immediate name for FTC bots inquiry By Reuters

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday pressed the Federal Commerce Fee to implement a 2016 regulation towards ticket scalpers utilizing bots after Ticketmaster blamed the software program for troubles promoting tickets to pop celebrity Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour.

Ticketmaster canceled deliberate ticket gross sales to most of the people for Swift’s 2023 U.S. live performance tour, her first in 5 years, earlier this month as 3.5 billion ticket requests from followers, bots and scalpers overwhelmed the web site.

Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, the highest Democrat and Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee’s information safety panel, each of whom labored on a 2016 regulation banning ticket scalpers from utilizing software program to purchase tickets, pressed the company on what, if something, it had accomplished to implement the regulation.

“Ticketmaster/LiveNation pointed to on-line bots as a cause why followers couldn’t get Taylor Swift live performance tickets, main the ticket vendor to close down gross sales to most of the people,” the senators wrote in a letter to the FTC, citing different cases of shoppers having issues shopping for tickets on-line.

“Whereas bots might not be the one cause for these issues, which Congress is evaluating, preventing bots is a vital step in decreasing shopper prices within the on-line ticketing business,” the senators wrote.

Swift, winner of the artist of the yr on the current American Music Awards, mentioned it had been “excruciating” to look at followers wrestle to safe tickets for her Eras tour after she had been assured that Ticketmaster may deal with the big demand.

A spokesman for the FTC confirmed that it had acquired the letter, however had no remark.

Within the letter, the lawmakers requested why the company had not introduced multiple enforcement motion beneath the regulation and requested if there have been different enforcement actions within the pipeline.