CNN
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The Justice Department has filed a civil lawsuit against the real estate company RealPage, alleging the company’s software uses landlord data to artificially inflate the price of rent across the United States by quelling competition in the market.
According to the complaint, the Texas-based company uses nonpublic data from landlords to train RealPage’s algorithm for pricing recommendations, creating a “vast scheme to subvert the competitive process,” one Justice Department official said.
“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday. “We allege that RealPage’s pricing algorithm enables landlords to share confidential, competitively sensitive information and align their rents.”
The software, according to the complaint, uses non-public data provided by landlords to see what competitors are charging or offering to maximize the amount landlords can charge as well as other ways they can make more money from renters.
“The rent is too damn high, and this is one of the reasons why,” Garland told reporters during a press conference on Friday.
The complaint is unique in its allegation that an algorithm created by the company…
