A major antitrust class action landed in federal court in San Francisco on Friday, alleging that six major hotel operators colluded to fix prices for their rooms using AI-powered software that provides pricing recommendations.
Plaintiffs and proposed class representatives are eight individual consumers who stayed at one or more of the hotel chains in the last four years.
The 41-page complaint alleges that Integrated Decisions and Systems, Inc. or "IDeaS" of Minnesota, and its parent company, SAS Institute, Inc, created and licensed software called "G3 RMS," that is the hotel industry's leading "revenue management system."
The defendants allegedly promote their system as a way that industry operators can gain "competitive advantage" in pricing decisions, but it is actually an algorithmic tool to fix prices in an anticompetitive manner.
The suit targets six familiar hotel chains: Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts US Inc, Omni Hotels and Resorts Inc, and Hyatt Hotel Corporation, in addition to Choice Hotels International Inc, which includes the budget conscious brands Comfort, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, Econo Lodge, and Rodeway Inn. Collectively the defendants have thousands of hotels in the United States.
The suit alleges price fixing in a number of major geographical markets including the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area which includes San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, San Mateo and Contra Costa counties, where all of the defendants operate hotels.
The complaint alleges that defendants have set up a way to automate the process of price fixing through use of an algorithm powered by artificial intelligence.
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CA Is Burning said:
CA Is Burning said:
By now, he's most likely been released, he signed a note promising to return for a court date.
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