Keep Calm…and Keep Reading On

August 18, 2026 by Donald Davidoff

A couple of years ago, there was a spate of new legislation at city and state levels…Seattle, California, New Jersey, etc. that motivated me to write a series of blog posts with the “Keep Calm…” moniker. The first, “Keep Calm…and Read the Second Section” emphasized how the titles of the legislation and related news articles made it sound like all pricing algorithms were being banned; however, a full reading of the main portion of the legislation made it clear that “algorithms” were defined in a very limited way, namely as only those algorithms that used non-public competitor data. 

While it’s been a while, we have a new entry in this long list. The City of Rockville, Maryland just issued a press release titled “Rockville Updates Rental Housing Code, Becomes First Maryland City to Ban Algorithmic Rent Pricing.” Once again, the headline is clickbait—wow! No pricing algorithms for rental pricing in Rockville? 

And once again, the advice holds: Keep calm…and in this case, just read the rest of the press release. 

The provocative (and misleading) first paragraph reads, “Rockville’s Mayor and Council on Monday voted unanimously to adopt a comprehensive update to the city code that makes Rockville the first city in Maryland to ban algorithmic rent pricing, prohibiting residential landlords from using rent-setting software…” as changes to Chapter 18 of the Rockville City Code, titled Rental Facilities and Landlord-Tenant Relations, take effect  Friday, January 1, 2027.  

But two paragraphs later, we see that “The section defines an algorithmic device as a product or service that uses algorithms, draws on non-public competitor data from two or more landlords, and recommends rents, fees, terms or occupancy levels.” Further, “As part of the ban, landlords also may not coordinate prices with other landlords, and agree not to compete on rent or terms, or subscribe to, or pay for, algorithmic pricing or price-coordination services” (which, by the way, has been illegal under federal and state anti-trust laws for more than a century). 

While Rockville may be touting this as part of their efforts to help with affordable housing, the reality is that this new law is no different than dozens of others throughout the nation and no different than multiple operators have already agreed to in settlement agreements with the Department of Justice. 

So, while the headline is again provocative, we simply need to Keep Calm…and Keep Reading On!