Pushing back on Adele's policy of checking names

The Sunday Times (of London, United Kingdom) reported in January, 2016 Ticketmaster's concerns over the resale of tickets to an Adele concert. The tickets were being resold via Ticketmaster's own secondary-market sites, Seatwave and Get Me In. The tickets were legitimate, but Adele required the original buyers' names to be printed on the tickets, with identify verification at the door.


Ticketmaster claimed Adele's requirement was unfair and largely unenforceable, and promised a refund or other compensation if a ticketholder was refused entry. Ticketmaster supports an open market for tickets, especially when they can make extra money. Adele allows resale at face value on her own web site. I guess she feels like she's protecting consumers, but the secondary market exists because so many primary buyers get access with the intent to resell. Many resellers are professional buyers, using software (not easily available to the general public) to pound through site defenses such as CAPTCHA.


In these days of concerns over privacy, Adele's policy seems like an invasion. It's bad enough there are security cameras practically everywhere in the UK, which serve the public safety but record legal activities as well and the recordings can be abused. Adele adds insult to injury by printing a name on yet another document that simply doesn't need it.