Landlords and property managers can’t collude on rental pricing. Using new technology to do it doesn’t change that antitrust fundamental. Regardless of the industry you’re in, if your business uses an algorithm to determine prices, a brief filed by the FTC and the Department of Justice offers a helpful guideline for antitrust compliance: your algorithm can’t do anything that would be illegal if done by a real person.
Mm… again not a lawyer, but I think that question goes beyond the scope of the document.
It basically gives the government permission to hold renters accountable for using software to artificially raise prices. What form that accountability takes is not addressed. Either that’s covered under existing collusion laws or is up to the courts.
So, it’s an essential ingredient to the cake that you’re describing… but unless prosecution (or whatever the term actually is) brings that up (I assume?), it won’t happen.
Does penalties in this case also mean compensation of the renters, whose wealth has been potentially robbed through illegal practices?
Mm… again not a lawyer, but I think that question goes beyond the scope of the document.
It basically gives the government permission to hold renters accountable for using software to artificially raise prices. What form that accountability takes is not addressed. Either that’s covered under existing collusion laws or is up to the courts.
So, it’s an essential ingredient to the cake that you’re describing… but unless prosecution (or whatever the term actually is) brings that up (I assume?), it won’t happen.
Only if you have the legal funds to take a landlord megacorp to court