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Are We Entering an AI Price-Fixing Dystopia?

"Algorithmic price-fixing appears to be spreading to more and more industries," warns the Atlantic. "And existing laws may not be equipped to stop it." They start with RealPage's rental-property software (pointing out that "a series of lawsuits says it's something else: an AI-enabled price-fixing ...

One of RealPage's subsidiaries, a service called Rainmaker, facesmultiple legal challenges for allegedly facilitating price-fixing in the hotel industry. Similar complaints have been brought against companies in industries as varied as health insurance, tire manufacturing, and meat processing. Last week, San Francisco passed a first-of-its-kind ordinance banning "both the sale and use of software which combines non-public competitor data to set, recommend or advise on rents and occupancy levels."

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