Professor Elettra Bietti Testifies Before Massachusetts State House on Rental Pricing Software Bills
12.05.2025— Professor Elettra Bietti recently testified before the Massachusetts State House in support of two bills designed to ease the path for antitrust cases against landlords who use commercial software to coordinate rental prices.
On November 19, Bietti spoke in favor of H1564 and S1016, which would reduce the legal burden for plaintiffs suing landlords who rely on real estate pricing software such as RealPage to align rents. Critics say such software enables price-fixing among landlords.
Similar measures have already been enacted in New York and California.
“Commercial landlords’ reliance on AI software to set rents has allegedly led to higher rental prices across MA and beyond,” said Bietti, an expert on the regulation of digital technologies, data and digital platform intermediaries. “Given the novelty of the antitrust issues at stake, and the difficulty of proving rent-setting collusion through algorithms, these state bills are a very significant development. They ease plaintiffs’ burden in antitrust lawsuits and reduce commercial landlords’ incentive to collude at a time when rents are such an important part of most households’ expenses.”
Bietti studies digital platforms as well as privacy, data protection and antitrust law. She defends an approach to law that is sensitive to justice in the digital economy.
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