{"id":57171,"date":"2025-12-01T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/57171\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:13:06","slug":"realpage-sues-new-york-to-block-algorithm-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/57171\/","title":{"rendered":"RealPage sues New York to block algorithm law"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBANY \u2014 Artificial Intelligence companies have the right to decide how much New Yorkers pay in rent, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the state attorney general’s office\u00a0last week on behalf of the world\u2019s leading provider of AI real estate software platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas-based\u00a0RealPage filed the civil complaint against state sAttorney General\u00a0Letitia James in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in an attempt to block a new state law<\/a> that will ban algorithmic rent pricing. The law goes into effect on Dec. 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n

James is being sued in her capacity to enforce the statute, which was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, RealPage alleges that New York\u2019s law will ban lawful speech and was the result of an intentional misinformation campaign that made false claims about the company\u2019s revenue management software.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis misguided effort to manage rental prices tramples on RealPage\u2019s First Amendment right to offer advice and recommendations,\u201d said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for RealPage. \u201cNew York legislators should propose real solutions to housing affordability issues instead of banning constitutionally protected speech.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its lawsuit, RealPage claims that the new law is unconstitutional, \u201cboth facially and as applied to RealPage and its customers.\u201d By flatly banning RealPage\u2019s speech in advance, New York\u2019s law imposes an invalid prior restraint, it adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the attorney general\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The law, among the first in the country, outlaws the practice of landlords using algorithms to set rent pricing. Among other things, the law bans software that uses user-inputted and public data about rental or lease terms to advise or recommend market-appropriate rent prices for properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Violators could face up to $1 million in civil penalties, as well as criminal prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October, one of the bill\u2019s sponsors, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan Democrat, said the use of real estate management software like RealPage lets landlords access renewal rates and other property information to drive rent increases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RealPage was also\u00a0the target of a recently settled<\/a> U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit. The Biden administration estimated the software company caused U.S. renters to spend an extra $3.8 billion in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under the proposed terms of that settlement, RealPage can no longer use real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the software\u2019s algorithm must be at least a year old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed last week points out that the new version of the software is permitted by the Department of Justice under its proposed antitrust consent decree with RealPage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October, California and New York signed laws to crack down on the rent-setting software, which critics argue gives access to a trove of confidential data and helps RealPage clients charge the highest possible rent. Philadelphia and Seattle have also passed ordinances against the practice. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2014 Artificial Intelligence companies have the right to decide how much New Yorkers pay in rent, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[844,9,24,63,1165,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-57171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-latestnews","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-state-politics","13":"tag-staten-island","14":"tag-staten-island-headlines","15":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}