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FEAT welcomes Digital Services Act to improve ticket resale

The European Union (EU) has reached a provisional political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA), which will benefit ticket buyers as it aims to crack down on ticket resale abuse and create a safer online environment.

The text was agreed at the weekend after long hours of discussion between policy-makers. The Act is set to include a number of measures to regulate secondary ticketing marketplaces and enforce these guidelines.

Ticket scalpers will only be able to list tickets after providing all information, with marketplaces making efforts to verify them; secondary marketplaces will also have to conduct random checks for tickets being sold illegally; and measures that have been designed to pressure buyers, like pop-ups claiming a number of people are viewing the same ticket, will be banned.

While it has been reported that micro and small marketplaces will be exempt from verifying traders and being obliged to carry out random checks, medium-sized marketplaces that employ between 50 and 250 people will have to abide by the rules set out by the DSA.

The Face-Value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT) has welcomed the move, having spent two years engaging with the EU on the DSA, including the arrangement of an open letter calling on the DSA to enforce online marketplaces act responsibly.

Sam Shembtob, FEAT director, said: “We cautiously welcome news of measures to be placed on secondary ticketing marketplaces to clean up the Wild West in which they have operated so far.

“The devil will be in the detail, but we hope the new requirements for vetting traders and publishing basic information about the seller will enable fans and event organisers to make informed decisions.”

The Act’s text will need to be finalised at a technical level before the European Parliament and Council gives a formal approval. Once published in the EU Official Journal, the DSA will come into force just 20 days later. Big tech firms will have four months to prepare, while companies that have less than 45 million users will have 15 months or until January 1, 2024.

Image: John Schnobrich on Unsplash