Look beyond the BOTS Act, says Queue-it CEO [Press: Ticketing Business News]
Venues and ticketing platforms cannot simply rely on legislation and law enforcement agencies to help them beat bot-using scalpers. Niels Henrik Sodemann, CEO and co-founder of Queue-it, recently discussed the impact of the recently-passed Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act in the US during a webinar.
The BOTS Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama late last year, hands the Federal Trade Commission the power to penalize those found to be using ticket bots to scalp large numbers of tickets bypassing the security of ticket sales systems.
The bill also makes it illegal to sell tickets obtained through bots. Both the person who employed the software and anyone who has knowledge of how the tickets were obtained can be held liable for the offence.
Sodemann said that the BOTS Act “prohibits the circumvention of a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure on an Internet website or online service of a ticket issuer and there is a fair amount of legislation around the world attempting to guard against this”.
However, he has concerns about whether legislation alone is enough to beat scalpers and their use of bots.