"Ticketmaster employees repeatedly -- and illegally -- accessed a competitor's computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence," U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme wrote in a statement.

"Further, Ticketmaster's employees brazenly held a division-wide 'summit' at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company's computers, as if that were an appropriate business tactic," his statement continues, referring to what court paper's describe as the company's U.K.-based competitor. "Today's resolution demonstrates that any company that obtains a competitor's confidential information for commercial advantage, without authority or permission, should expect to be held accountable in federal court."

Uh huh. For some extremely limited definitions of "accountable."

In October 2019, Ticketmaster's former employee Zeeshan Zaidi pleaded guilty to a computer hacking conspiracy count related to the scheme. Another ex-Ticketmaster employer, ex-CrowdSource executive Stephen Mead, had been accused of hacking into his former employer's database in order to provide real-time information about its plans, according to a lawsuit filed some three years ago. [...]

In an unsigned statement, Ticketmaster expressed the desire to put the matter behind the company.

"I desire to put this matter behind us," says person caught with their hand in the till.

The California-based ticket sales giant will pay $10 million to avoid prosecution for those allegations for at least 3.5 years, until June 2024.

The five counts of the criminal information are conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, computer intrusion of a protected computer, computer intrusion in the furtherance of fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud.

I had never heard of "deferred prosecution", and I'm still not clear on what it means, but it sounds like another way of saying plea bargain, where they pay a fine but there is no admission of guilt, finding of guilt, or any other consequences.

From the word "deferred" you would think that it means that in 3.5 years they could still be prosecuted for this crime, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

A fine is a price.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.