BROOKLYN, New York — Ticketmaster agreed to pay a $10 million dollar fine to resolve charges the company hacked a rival ticket sellers computer system.
Back in October of last year, Zeeshan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster’s Artist Services division, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud for his involvement in the scheme.
The company has been accused of holding an unfair monopoly on ticket sales by consumer groups and competitors.
According to Acting U.S. Attorney, Seth D. DuCharme, Ticketmaster employees repeatedly accessed a competitor’s computer using stolen passwords and stole important business information. “Further, Ticketmaster’s employees brazenly held a division-wide ‘summit’ at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company’s computers, as if that were an appropriate business tactic.”
The company agreed to a diverted prosecution plan. “Under the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, Ticketmaster will pay a criminal penalty of $10 million and will maintain a compliance and ethics program designed to prevent and detect violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other applicable laws, and to prevent the unauthorized and unlawful acquisition of confidential information belonging to its competitors. Ticketmaster will also report to the United States Attorney’s Office annually during the three-year term of the agreement regarding these compliance measures. If the Company breaches the agreement, it will be subject to prosecution for the charges in the criminal information that was filed today, charging the Company with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, one count of computer intrusion for commercial advantage, one count of computer intrusion in furtherance of fraud, one count of wire fraud conspiracy and one count of wire fraud.”