FTC BETTER ONLINE TICKET SALES ACT (BOTS ACT) Lawyer + BOTS ACT Investigation defense Attorney

Better Online Ticket Sales Act ("BOTS Act") Lawyer

Enacted in 2016, the BOTS Act aims to prevent ticket brokers from buying large numbers of event tickets and reselling them to interested customers at inflated prices.  To achieve that goal, the BOTS Act prohibits a person from circumventing access controls or measures used by online ticket sellers to enforce ticket-purchasing limits.  It also prevents the resale of tickets obtained by knowingly circumventing access controls.

Specifically, the Better Online Ticket Sales Act prohibits the circumvention of a security measure, access control system, or other technological control measure used online by a ticket issuer.  The BOTS Act also prohibits selling or offering to sell an event ticket obtained through such a circumvention violation if the seller participated in, had the ability to control, or should have known about the violation.  The Bots Act applies to event tickets for public concerts, theater performances, sporting events, and similar activities at venues with seating capacity of over 200.

The BOTS Act bestows upon the Federal Trade Commission with the ability to seek monetary penalties intended to ensure that consumers possess equitable access to tickets.  Violating the BOTS Act can lead to investigation and enforcement.  The BOTS Act also aims to protect consumers from price gouging on the secondary market.  How a ticket reseller or broker does it is not necessary as important as whether there is an act of circumventing “a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure . . . the ticket seller has put in place” that violates the BOTS Act.

The BOTS Act does not specifically require a technological solution to circumvent purchase limits, rather, it prohibits any means of bypassing such limits.  For example, ticket purchasers that evade ticket limits by using fictitious identities, multiple credit cards or multiple spoofed IP addresses on the same device may be in violation of the BOTS Act, even if they do not use ticket bots.

Additionally, the BOTS Act also addresses more than just using bots to circumvent sellers’ security systems.  The BOTS Act makes it illegal to sell tickets obtained in violation of the statute if the seller participated in the illegal purchase or knew or should have known the tickets were acquired in violation of the law

An experience BOTS Act compliance and defense lawyer can assist software developers and distributors, ticket resellers and ticket brokers minimize potential corporate and individual liability exposure.  Importantly, FTC BOTS Act counsel and State Attorneys General share enforcement authority under the BOTS Act.