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by photonthug 238 days ago
Seems like an optimistic read on things. This is the kind of common-sense approach you would expect in a world without lawyers, just observing that collusion is bad because the effects are bad, and digging into the details of the causes are completely irrelevant for the public/plaintiff because it's really just on the company to fix the undesirable result.

IANAL but if realpages outcomes were definitive or reasonably generalized results dealing with the core issue, then similar arguments against e.g. Amazon would be a slam dunk. AFAIK, actual case outcome just hinges on details about "nonpublic data" and similar. Not remotely on bad effects for consumers or anything like that. Since printing realpages database in the newspaper would not actually help apartment-hunters, then this just tells landlords and third party markets how to do price-fixing legally next time? Most likely algorithmic pricing, surveillance pricing, etc is still coming to your grocery store after the issue is "settled" for property rental, or at least settled for realpages, in certain jurisdictions, for now.
1 comments
skeezyjefferson 238 days ago
> AFAIK, actual case outcome just hinges on details about "nonpublic data" and similar.

that sounds like insider trading. price fixing would need not involve nonpublic information (beyond the actual conspiracy to fix the prices as it helps to keep that part secret normally)

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photonthug 237 days ago
> “Settling Defendants have agreed not to provide nonpublic data to RealPage for use in competitor pricing recommendations and to refrain from using RealPage’s RMS that relies on non-public competitor data to make pricing recommendations,” attorneys wrote in the settlement filing.

https://www.multifamilydive.com/news/realpage-class-action-l...

I agree that "nonpublic" is barely related to the problem so how it's related to a solution is unclear. But it seems like this is the only general aspect of the outcome. Otherwise the outcome is just to stop doing this specific bad thing this specific time, and fines that are less than the profit made from bad behaviour.

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