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RealPage on Thursday announced that customers using its rent-setting software now have the ability to remove “nonpublic competitor data” from the factors that go into making rent recommendations.
In its announcement, RealPage refers to a new San Francisco ordinance that bars landlords from using rent-setting software in a move that is directed squarely at keeping RealPage out of the city.
RealPage has maintained the legality of its product and the baselessness of claims otherwise. It said this option was being provided because of the company’s commitment to giving its customers a variety of options on how to customize its software.
“The San Francisco ordinance’s misplaced focus on nonpublic information is a distraction that will only make San Francisco’s historical problems worse by banning an important component of pricing technology that RealPage uses responsibly and that benefits residents, property managers and the rental housing ecosystem as a whole,” RealPage said in its announcement.
RealPage’s announcement comes about two weeks after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the company, alleging that its products violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by allowing apartment landlords to artificially raise rents.
RealPage has said it intends to work with the DOJ to resolve its issues with the company’s products, but legal experts indicate that the issues RealPage has encountered might be the first of many as the 134-year-old antitrust law is applied to technology that its authors couldn't have anticipated.
“This is all so new,” Jerrold Bregman, a partner at BG Law who specializes in commercial real estate, corporate and business transactions, told the Washington Business Journal.
“Artificial intelligence is powering these algorithms and enabling this process, which separate individuals from the actions,” Bregman said. “It’s machine learning and dictation, and [according to the lawsuit] allows collusive practices without the discussion. It hasn’t been seen in commercial real estate, but I think this is indicative of the times that we’re in.”
Examples in other industries of this clash between technology and the antitrust law are already cropping up, including the August ruling that Google violated the law and has a monopoly over the online search engine market.
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