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Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

nytimes.com

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Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#31

Post by rjsw »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #22
bobjordan wrote: post #11

Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…

What do you feel Airbnb should have done about it? I haven't tried to use it before, so I'm not sure about the process, however it seems to me that a homeowner is in no different of a position than a hotelier. It would make sense that your price contains the cost of insurance, and that your own rules / t&c's govern the guests stay. Surely the recourse is a civil case against the guest rather than against airbnb? I do…

Hotels usually have the credit card number of the guest.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#32

Post by ovis »

jasode wrote: post #12

>Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real es…

What if there was a reputation threshold for a traveller to make an instant booking? Of course it's still not immune to racism or sexism, but it seems that it would provide a decent buffer against it.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#33

Post by gmarx »

Many other commenters imply that since people would flee the platform if they couldn't discriminate, that AirBnB shouldn't have to deal with the problem. It's the opposite. AirBnB is required to deal with the problem. Their challenge is to make it look like they are dealing with the problem (e.g. hire Eric Holder) while not actually dealing with it in any substantive way.

Lots of these new companies have as part of their secret sauce the hiding of racial discrimination and avoiding regulations and fees that their old style competitors can't. once/if the govt cracks down a lot of these valuations must be reimagined

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#34

Post by heydenberk »

bobjordan wrote: post #11

Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…

This is either largely unrelated to the original post or intensely problematic. You would do well to reconsider what you have written here and how it relates to the topic at hand.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#35

Post by MaxGabriel »

untog wrote: post #19
bobjordan wrote: post #11

Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…

That's not really relevant here. The article is specifically about racial discrimination.

The article says that one way AirBnB is handling racial discrimination is to "accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval." It's not AirBnB's goal, but as a side effect it would affect bobjordan, so it is relevant.

(edit: it would depend on how they implement more instant booking. If they just encouraged renters to use it (but could they just encourage and still stop discrimination?), people like bobjordan could just opt out).

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#36

Post by gambiting »

jasode wrote: post #12

>Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real es…

But that's not a new thing - I definitely booked places with AirBnB through their "instant" feature more than a year ago. It's clearly advertised as such on selected places, and obviously the home owner has to agree to that system, but it meant that I knew where I was sleeping that night, without having to wait for the host to approve me.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#37

Post by protomyth »

rjsw wrote: post #31
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel Airbnb should have done about it? I haven't tried to use it before, so I'm not sure about the process, however it seems to me that a homeowner is in no different of a position than a hotelier. It would make sense that your price contains the cost of insurance, and that your own rules / t&c's govern the guests stay. Surely the recourse is a civil case against the guest rather than against airbnb? I do…

Hotels usually have the credit card number of the guest.

and insurance and the means and laws to go after the former guest

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#38

Post by aikah »

gmarx wrote: post #33

Many other commenters imply that since people would flee the platform if they couldn't discriminate, that AirBnB shouldn't have to deal with the problem. It's the opposite. AirBnB is required to deal with the problem. Their challenge is to make it look like they are dealing with the problem (e.g. hire Eric Holder) while not actually dealing with it in any substantive way. Lots of these new companies have as part of t…

Wow, you're right :

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex...

It's like these corporations hiring diversity officers who won't fix anything in their discriminatory hiring process. Pure PR.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#39

Post by runako »

aikah wrote: post #28
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Don't want to let black people stay in your house? Don't put it on AirBnB.

> They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Are all Airbnbs title II rentals ? I don't think so. That's why Airbnb is successful, because it operates at the "edge" of the law, shifting the risk on both clients and hosts.

Title II is explicit:

"any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence. "

If the proprietor is not using the rental as his/her residence, it's defined under US law as a "place of public accommodation," in spite of current efforts to pretend that law doesn't exist.

So: not all AirBnB rentals fall under this rubric, but certainly many of them do.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#40

Post by aianus »

Frondo wrote: post #29
marknutter wrote: post #2

Doesn't discrimination end up hurting the hosts in the end? Having less demand drives the rental costs down.

It didn't hurt businesses in the American south enough to compel them to stop discriminating. I don't get it either, why would I turn down someone's money because they're black, but lots of people did and whatever economic pain they felt from it was apparently outweighed by the joy of being racist assholes.

It was probably because their white customers were racist assholes too so they would lose more money on losing those white customers than they would gain from new black ones.
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