1y ago

DOJ sues software firm RealPage for allegedly helping landlords collude to keep rents high

www.cnbc.com

The Department of Justice accused software company RealPage of unlawfully scheming to undermine competition among landlords and create a monopoly that harms millions of renters.
RealPage “allows landlords to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,” the Justice Department said in the federal civil antitrust lawsuit.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Everybody knows the rent is too damn high, and we allege this is one of the reasons why.”

19 comments

- i upvoted you, but if a single downvote is provoking that kind of an edit from you, you really need to take a break from the internet for a while
  
  No, I agree. The parasites shitpost amongst us, we must stay vigilant.
- And preferably outright ban it!
- a lot of cities and neighborhoods ban AirBnB.
  if you have an airbnb problem, should bring it up at a local city council meeting to get shit done or an HoA if you live in an HoA neighborhood . its of the few things that actually do work and has shown to work in places.
- Last one I went to, booked it, got half way there and the owner said they hadn't approved the booking and tried to blame Airbnb. They tried to get me to tell Airbnb I changed my mind lol
  Another one, we brought ice cream because in the photos there was a freezer. It was completely full of ice though so couldn't put the ice cream in
  It's so disappointing that hotels are simply so much better. Airbnb had so much potential
"Allows landlords to manipulate.." What are we saying? They shuffle the responsibility of being an asshole onto the software? End of the day landlords were greedy bitch's.
- I mean, colluding with your competition to keep prices high is against the law. Yeah, they may still call their buddy across town and (illegally) coordinate what price to set the rent at, but the impact of that, vs a business that's incentivized to keep all prices high to the benefit of them and landlords!? Not even close...
- They shuffle the responsibility of being an asshole onto the software?
  That's quite literally it. It's much easier to raise rents when the magic computer tells you to do it. Then no human in your organization actually has to take responsibility for the decision.
- I don't see the problem here. Yes, I'd rather see landlords themselves punished for price fixing, but that's unlikely to happen because it involves prosecuting a huge number of defendants on charges that are hard to prove. Depriving them of software that's tailor made to facilitate price fixing seems like a good first step. Who knows, a successful suit against the software company could end to making it a lot easier to sue the landlords who used it.
If you want more reasons to hate landlords head over to the r/landlords subreddit. The people there are some of the nastiest, heartless people you will ever see.
Has this guy won any of the high profile cases he’s brought to DOJ?
- In 2024, the DOJ has collected over a billion dollars in plea agreements across 3 of the 6 cases brought. The other 3 appear to be unsettled.
  https://www.justice.gov/criminal/related-enforcement-actions-2024
This is great! Actual work being done on the sky-high rent prices.
Yeah, now where’s my unredacted Mueller Report you fuck.
- If Kamala wins, I hope she chooses somebody with some more teeth as the AG. I like Doug Jones personally
  
  I love his work in Star Trek Discovery.
Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
- This one is still net positive?! Lemmy's voting system must be malfunctioning or something.

19 comments