Taylor Swift Ticketmaster Investigation Continues: BOTS Act Under Scrutiny?

And the investigation continues!

Taylor Swift's "The Eras" tour ticket debacle seemed to have opened a huge pandora's box as different branches of the US government have continued to further their probe on the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

Ever since the chaotic presale of "The Eras" tour earlier this month, lawmakers have started to notice the ever-growing challenges of the public in securing concert tickets fairly.

During the ticket presale of "The Eras" tour earlier this month, Swifties had queued virtually for more than 8 hours only to leave emptyhanded and to fume for the botched processes.

Swifties have voiced out their sentiments on social media, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Min), among many others taking notice.

Because of this, Klobuchar, head of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, launched a full-blown investigation on the monopoly of the Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger.

Now, according to Billboard, the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, through Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, is now requesting the Federal Trade Commission about what steps they are taking to ensure that the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act was being enacted during issues like these.

The act, signed into federal law by President Barack Obama in 2016, was passed to "thwart attempts by individuals and organizations to automate the process of purchasing tickets en masse using ticket bots."

Although it has not been confirmed yet that bots were actually used during the Ticketmaster presale, resale values due to scalpers have skyrocketed to $24,000.

"Given the numerous high-profile incidents in the online ticket marketplace, it would be helpful to understand how the FTC intends to act to address such conduct going forward," the letter reads.

In the past few weeks, Ticketmaster has apologized for the ruckus, claiming that "tens of millions of uninvited users and billions of bots" are what caused the crashing of the presale.

"Based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing). that's a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years," Ticketmaster said.

Both Senators believe that bots may not be the only reason for the debacles, but fighting bots remains a crucial step in curbing consumer costs in the online ticketing industry.

Tags

Taylor Swift, Ticketmaster