Algorithmic Rent-Pricing Litigation Expands Under New State and Local Laws

In the People's Republic of Berkeley, our City Council patted themselves on the back in March 2025 when they passed similar laws.

Then they got sued by the company that was targeted, and immediately waffled and canceled the ban.

What's insane about all of this is that we also have Rent Control. There is no greater price fixing mechanism than Rent Control. Rent Control ensures that all landlords must seek the highest possible rent, because they are (potentially) tethered to it for life (of the tenant).

So if you create an economic system where sellers never will allow prices to go down, why bother banning price fixing -- its practically baked into the housing code.

I’d imagine it’s not so simple, especially without a functional legislative branch, but we could really use a “digital bill of rights” that could provide a comprehensive set of baseline protections and standards for things like this, online privacy, data protection, whatever stops Meta/X/et al from being maximally harmful, etc..

Sadly, you can not legislate a culture of decency.

Do car dealerships next...

From https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-time-ba...

> Our work against algorithmic rent-fixing is starting to bear real fruit. Multiple cities have passed laws prohibiting corporate landlords from using rent-fixing software, including San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Providence, RI. These laws aren’t complex and don’t require unwieldy market definition, you just have to show that the defendant is using nonpublic information in an algorithm to set prices. And they are being enforced, with six different lawsuits now pending.