The U.S. Justice Department announced this week it is suing six major apartment companies for practices that drive up prices and harm renters, including Ohioans. The Department of Justice filed an amended complaint in its lawsuit against real estate software company RealPage,

The U.S. Justice Department is suing six major U.S. landlords for allegedly participating in algorithmic pricing schemes harming millions of renters.

The real estate companies kept rents high with RealPage's software and by sharing information, the antitrust complaint says.

An amended complaint names six landlords as defendants in ongoing litigation that North Carolina and several other states, along with the federal government, began in August.

Several large landlords allegedly colluded in an effort to keep apartment rents high, including by using an algorithm that influences prices, according to new legal filings by the Colorado attorney general,

The complaint alleged the six companies set their rents using each other's information by either speaking with competitor's senior managers, calling around, and participating in user groups to discuss how to modify pricing methods.

The U.S. Department of Justice and 10 state attorneys general have ramped up their antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, a property management software compa