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Open petition: Ban the use of bots to make purchases on websites

Created by Connor Lewis Lancaster
Closes on

Make bot-assisted online purchasing illegal by expanding the 2018 Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations to cover all high-demand goods, including collectibles like sneakers, trading cards, and even essentials such as toilet paper.

We believe hobbies like sneaker collecting and trading card games now resemble the stock market, with bots bypassing purchase limits to secure multiple items. We feel captchas are no longer effective as bots have evolved beyond them, creating a grey area under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We also believe this practice is harmful and unethical, as it can inflate prices by allowing items bought at retail to be resold at a higher cost.

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  • Petition published

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    If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, government will respond to it.

    If this petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.

    This petition will stay open until 14 July 2026.