U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), along with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), joined CNBC’s Squawk Box today to discuss how they are working in a bipartisan way to combat the use and operation of bots in the online ticket marketplace.

Click here to watch the interview.

Ticket Platforms Need To Work With The FTC To Give Fans Fair Access

“When I am out and about in Nashville, I hear from tour managers. I hear from business managers, talent agents [about] how frustrated they are with what is happening with Live Nation and with Ticketmaster, and they feel it's appropriate for us to step in. In 2016 when I was in the House, Senator Schumer and I passed the BOTS Act, which gives the FTC the authority to move in and to go after these bots to work with these ticketing platforms. And the FTC has not exercised that authority. They need to be doing it. They've only brought forward one case. But the point is also that these ticket platforms, when they know they've got a bot in their presence, they need to give that information to the FTC so that the FTC can go after this -- so they can be blocked from these sites. And so fans, whether they're fans of the Grand Ole Opry or Taylor Swift or any of the other ones that are out there, they can get the tickets for the shows that they want.”

If Cyber Attacks Caused This Debacle, How Does Ticketmaster Plan To Protect Consumers?

“One of the problems that we have, when you look at the fact that Ticketmaster has 70% of your venues and of your live venues, and then you look at the way they are transacting this business… When you go onto that site, like if you went onto a sporting event site, then there's information for rideshare services and hotels and additional events. They're capturing a lot of data. What are they doing with that? Now, when you talk about [how] they wanted to say that cyber-attacks had caused this, well, what are you doing to protect from all the cyber-attacks? Not 70, 80 or 90% of them, but all of them. We have critical infrastructure in this country, our banking industry, our healthcare industry, water, sewer, utilities. And every day they have cyber-attacks.”

RELATED:

Blackburn, Blumenthal Press FTC On Bot Operations Amid Ticketmaster Debacle

The FTC Has Failed To Enforce The BOTS Act

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