When the recent Bruce Springsteen ticket sales event blew up in Ticketmaster’s stupid face, it brought down the wrath of New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram. Now Ticketmaster and New Jersey have reached a settlement that will change how the company conducts business across the U.S. Here’s what will change:

• 1. No more linking to TicketsNow directly from a Ticketmaster transaction screen. This applies nationwide.
• 2. Ticketmaster will pay New Jersey $350,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.
• 3. Ticketmaster will stop an advertising agreement with Google which redirected Ticketmaster searches to the TicketsNow website.
• 4. Ticketmaster will hold a lottery to sell 2,000 Springsteen tickets at face value to customers who complained about the botched sales. Another 1,000 customers who don’t win the lottery will be given $100 gift certificates and an opportunity to purchase tickets to an upcoming NJ Springsteen concert.

All in all, it’s a pretty good smackdown of Ticketmaster’s misleading and unfair business practices, although we suspect Ticketmaster caved so quickly partly to improve its reputation as the government begins to look at their upcoming merger with Live Nation.

“Ticketmaster will stop linking customers to subsidiary” [NJ.com] (Thanks to Doug!)

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