Ticketmaster changes policies after FTC lawsuit.
Following the FTC’s lawsuit last month, Ticketmaster pledged to change its policies.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, for allegedly engaging in illegal ticket reseller practices. In an Oct. 17 letter to lawmakers, Live Nation Executive Vice President Daniel Wall denied FTC allegations that the company is aiding scalpers and said the company would implement new practices to benefit concertgoers.
As part of these new policy changes, the ticket seller will no longer allow users who purchase tickets to have multiple accounts. All redundant accounts will be eliminated soon, and each seller account must have a unique taxpayer ID.
According to the letter, the company also plans to shut down TradeDesk, its inventory management app. The controversial software is a tool that helps sellers track and price tickets across many marketplaces, often dealing with a large volume of tickets. The app has previously been accused of facilitating the process of collecting tickets, which Wall also denies, saying that the platform does not buy tickets. Competitors like StubHub and Vivid Seats use similar software, he says.
Live Nation will “remove TradeDesk’s concert ticket management functionality from the market” to help boost its reputation.
The FTC’s recent lawsuit isn’t the first legal battle the ticketing giant has faced. Last year, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, proposing to break up the company over its alleged monopolistic practices.
Amid these lawsuits, fans continued to complain about being unable to obtain tickets and having to pay significantly more than face value from distributors.
Founded in 1976, Ticketmaster has been the largest ticket provider in the industry since 1995, with approximately 80% of live concerts sold through the site. More recently, it has also captured a growing share of the resale market. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumers spent more than $82.6 billion purchasing tickets from the Beverly Hills-based company from 2019 to 2024.
The seller is also promising to implement new AI-powered tools to help verify identities, weed out unauthorized users and monitor potential fraudulent purchases.