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this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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"We're not colluding with our competitors to fix prices on rental units, we all use a third party service to collude for us" is such a bullshit legal excuse that I'm shocked they even floated it.
And in the meantime the market has been wrecked with this being an additional factor. The effect of the pricing adjustments done using this method will never go away.
That's the history of anti-trust law. A lot of cases business just admit it because they are that ignorant/blatant.
Unfortunately as well historically a lot of conservative judges do radical legislation from the bench because they don't like anti-trust law and think they should regulate the economy. So much so that they have fucking bent civil procedure over backwards to do so and write some of the stupidest lines in the history of jurisprudence.
How is this different than gas stations looking at a price tracking app to set their prices? You know, the apps that show you what gas costs all over town. It’s just information, and they obviously make the choice to raise prices when theirs are low compared to peer competitors.
That doesn’t mean a gas station doesn’t charge less when it’s in an undesirable location, or charge more when it’s in a busy location. Same is true for housing.
I know everyone is pissed about the high cost of housing, but this case doesn’t really have merit. It’s not the horse to cheer for.
The difference is that the information gas stations are using is public, but the information used by RealPage is non-public and sensitive.
From https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing
…
So the question becomes: does use of RealPage qualify as “coordination with a competitor?”
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing
In this case you have them sharing prices with RealPage in exchange for information that will affect their prices.
I’m no lawyer, but it seems pretty clear that this situation could qualify as price fixing.
Thanks so much for the reply. I didn’t understand that it’s private; I figured it was just aggregating Zillow and Craigslist postings etc, which are public. If that isn’t the case, then yes I can see how it might be illegal.