But the fact that she just signed a bill banning NY landlords colluding on rents using RealPage and similar software was the right thing to do.
The cynic in me will assume that she understood the electoral dynamics of vetoing the bill, and chose the better part of valor.
Building owners and property managers will no longer be able to use algorithm-based software to artificially inflate New Yorkers’ rents as a result of a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday.
The new legislation updates the state’s antitrust laws to include the algorithmic software and comes after the U.S Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against RealPage, a company that uses algorithms to analyze public and private rental data — including vacancies and lease renewal rates — in order to give landlords and property managers price recommendations.
The Council of Economic Advisors estimated that price-fixing algorithms cost renters nationwide $3.8 billion more in inflated rents in 2023.
………
New York is not the only state to ban the use of algorithmic rental price-fixing software. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a similar bill into law earlier this month.
And in May, Jersey City became the first municipality in the Garden State to ban landlords from using AI to set rental rates. Similar bans have also been enacted in cities like Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
Even if Hochul did the right thing for the basest of political reasons, she still did the right thing.
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