Ticketmaster to Ban Multiple Accounts, Shut Down TradeDesk After FTC Lawsuit

In the wake of last month’s Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, Ticketmaster has announced a major policy change, telling lawmakers that the company plans to bar fans and brokers from operating multiple accounts on its platform. Ticketmaster also plans to shut down its long-criticized TradeDesk ticket uploading application and start requiring ticket brokers to hand over their Social Security numbers in order to sell tickets on Ticketmaster’s resale platform.

The change is outlined in a detailed, 10-page letter to Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), dated Oct. 17, by Live Nation executive vice president Daniel M. Wall. The letter from the company’s top corporate and regulatory affairs lawyer responds to a congressional inquiry about the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit, joined by seven state attorneys general, accusing Ticketmaster and Live Nation of anti-competitive behavior and BOTS Act violations.

Wall’s message is clear: the FTC’s case “presents a distorted view of the facts and the law.” He argues that the government’s claims are based on “novel and expansionist” interpretations of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, and that Ticketmaster — not its competitors — has done more than anyone to combat scalping and fraud.

From the outset, Wall positions Live Nation as an ally of consumers, not an adversary. Wall opens by assuring the senators that the company shares their “commitment to supporting artists and fans and protecting the integrity of the live entertainment industry.” The FTC’s complaint, he argues, targets the one company that has “indisputably done more than anyone else in the industry to fight the bad actors.”

One of the most serious allegations in the FTC complaint is that Ticketmaster “coordinated with ticket brokers” to obtain inventory and profit from resale fees. Wall calls that claim “categorically false.”

He argues that the FTC has confused the long-standing industry practice of brokers maintaining multiple accounts — a holdover from the physical-ticket era — with illegal conspiracy. “That ticket brokers have been allowed to maintain multiple accounts is true; calling that conspiracy is specious,” Wall writes, emphasizing that Ticketmaster does not secretly transfer tickets to scalpers or relax enforcement of ticket limits “for financial gain.”

The letter frames the issue as one of historical practice, not misconduct, noting that secondary marketplaces like StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats rely on broker inventory for 80–100% of their listings. In Live Nation’s view, allowing brokers multiple accounts may be a legacy practice worth reforming — but it’s not a crime.

The TradeDesk Controversy

The senators’ letter had echoed FTC concerns over TradeDesk, Ticketmaster’s inventory management platform, which regulators claim facilitated large-scale ticket harvesting. Wall calls that portrayal “plainly false.”

According to the letter, TradeDesk does not purchase tickets and has no bot functionality. Instead, it’s a logistics tool for brokers to track and price their listings across multiple marketplaces. “It is one of numerous inventory management systems,” Wall writes, citing StubHub’s TicketUtils, Vivid Seats’ SkyBox, and independent tools like Automatiq as comparable software.

Still, in a notable concession, Live Nation says it will be “removing TradeDesk’s concert ticket management functionality from the market” to avoid “reputational harm.” Wall acknowledges that users will simply migrate to other systems, but the move appears designed to blunt political criticism and show that Ticketmaster is serious about reform.

Wall also announced a major change to the company’s rules about how many accounts a user is allowed to operate. The company’s current policy, as of August 2025, explains that “each [Ticketmaster] account must be linked to a unique individual and contain up-to-date information,” noting that the company “may restrict the number of accounts you can create.”

Going forward, Wall explains, Ticketmaster will now limit every entity — including professional resellers — to a single verified account. Each resale account will require a unique taxpayer ID, and excess accounts will be canceled. Wall says Ticketmaster will deploy new AI tools and identity verification to identify fake or duplicate accounts and remove unauthorized users. Ticketmaster already blocks more than 99% of 25 million daily signup attempts, Wall claims.

Ticketmaster will also expand its anti-bot systems that currently block 200 million bots per day, with new tools for artists to conduct “post-onsale ticket sweeps” to cancel fraudulent purchases. Finally, Wall reiterates that Ticketmaster will work with artists to ensure more tickets go to fans, citing programs like Artist Sign Up, Smart Queue and Face Value Exchange as examples of consumer-friendly innovation.

The company presents these initiatives as proof of good faith — an effort to show lawmakers that Live Nation is addressing the same problems the FTC claims it’s ignoring.

Wall rejected arguments that Ticketmaster was “turning a blind eye” to bot activity because the company profits from fees on both primary and secondary sales. Wall dismisses the theory as “nonsensical,” arguing that resale revenue accounts for less than 2% of Live Nation’s total revenue and that its resale market share is below 20%. “Our incentives are plainly to favor artists and fans,” he writes.

The letter also takes aim at the FTC’s use of a 2018 internal email suggesting that Ticketmaster “turns a blind eye as a matter of policy.” Wall claims the agency misquoted the message out of context — noting that the author was actually complaining about an internal compliance “wall” separating Ticketmaster’s primary and resale operations, not advocating for lax enforcement. The FTC, he writes, “picked nine words out of context and changed the policy those words addressed to create that misimpression.”

A Broader Fight Over the BOTS Act

At the core of the dispute is how the BOTS Act — a 2016 law co-sponsored by Senator Blackburn — should be interpreted. The FTC claims Ticketmaster violated the act by allowing brokers to circumvent ticket limits. Live Nation argues the law was never meant to criminalize multiple account ownership but to target technological circumvention — i.e., using bots or scripts to bypass anti-fraud systems.

“The FTC’s case is based on a fundamentally novel and expansionist view of the BOTS Act,” Wall writes, accusing regulators of “writing ‘technological controls’ out of the statute.” In his view, only those who use or control software to circumvent security measures — not every broker with extra accounts — can violate the act.

Ironically, Wall notes, Live Nation itself has advocated for expanding the BOTS Act to explicitly outlaw automated ticket-buying tools, suggesting that the company supports stronger anti-bot laws — just not this interpretation of them.

Wall closes by expressing support for the bipartisan MAIN Event Ticketing Act, which aims to expand the BOTS Act and improve reporting of bot attacks. But he warns that requiring ticketing companies to report every instance of circumvention could overwhelm the system: “Attempted circumvention… happens constantly and at enormous scale.”

Instead, he urges the FTC to focus on enforcement — going after the “purveyors of ticket harvesting technology and their customers” — rather than imposing new reporting mandates on companies like Ticketmaster.

The letter is more than a rebuttal — it’s a strategic document. By framing the issue as a technological and legislative problem, Live Nation is shifting the fight from antitrust to cybersecurity and betting that policymakers care more about fighting bots than wading into a complex breakup case. At the same time, Live Nation’s decision to sunset TradeDesk and impose stricter account rules shows that the company recognizes the political cost of perception. Even if the FTC’s case falters in court, the public narrative around “collusion with scalpers” could prove damaging in Congress.

For now, Live Nation’s message to Washington is simple: we’re not the villains — we’re the ones fighting them.