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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

#81

Post by exelius »

RodericDay wrote: post #58
exelius wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Airbnb would argue that it's not their place to enforce these laws; and that if individual hosts are violating them, the government should go after them. It's a typical problem of the "sharing" economy. I'm not sure the courts will agree with them, but their strategy has been similar to Uber's in that they come in, break the law (or at the very least operate in a legal grey area), then get so big that traditi…

I could agree with this. But, since the government will have to do all this inspection, I guess you agree that they will have to levy a tax on AirBnB to pay for it?

I doubt Airbnb would agree with that -- since it would make their rentals much less attractive when compared to hotels (which have taxes around 15-20% in most big cities).

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

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

jasode wrote: post #80
dragonwriter wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes. But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use.

>But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use. Well, since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker", _why_ would a homeowner think she's breaking any anti-discrimination laws when screening prospective renters for her spare bedroom? I don't know about Airbn…

> since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker"

I said "brokering service" rather than "broker" for a reason, as a shorthand for a broad class of services (the exclusion from the fair housing exemption extends to any use of rental or sales services of a broker, agent, or any person in the business or rental or sales; this is much broader than classification as a "broker" specifically.)

> If so, this outcome still wouldn't be realistic: "Well, Ms Smith's loft discriminates against black people but we're all ok with it now because Airbnb collects money differently therefore they are no longer a broker."

It would be perfectly realistic, and is, in fact, the status of lots of small direct-by-owner rentals advertised through services that are more listing than brokering services, which do in fact discriminate on axes that would otherwise be prohibited. Units that do not use brokering services and fit within the size and other requirements of the fair housing exemption in federal law are (under federal law) perfectly legal. (If they don't fall into a state-law exemption, which are often narrower, they may run afoul of state fair housing laws, though.)

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

#83

Post by jasode »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
jasode wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use. Well, since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker", _why_ would a homeowner think she's breaking any anti-discrimination laws when screening prospective renters for her spare bedroom? I don't know about Airbn…

> since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker" I said "brokering service" rather than "broker" for a reason, as a shorthand for a broad class of services (the exclusion from the fair housing exemption extends to any use of rental or sales services of a broker, agent, or any person in the business or rental or sales; this is much b…

>I said "brokering service" rather than "broker" for a reason, as a shorthand for a broad class of services

And what makes Airbnb a "brokering service"? Is it the 3% fee collected upfront instead of commissions being billed monthly like Ebay? Therefore, if Airbnb collected money differently to avoid the label of being a brokering "service", would the outrage about discrimination really be avoided? I doubt it.

>direct-by-owner rentals advertised through services that are more listing than brokering services, which do in fact discriminate on axes

What would Airbnb have to change to meet that definition? To me, the homeowners have to create their own listings and upload their own photos. It's not like real estate agents who create listings in the proprietary and closed MLS system on behalf of clients.

(Regardless of your answers, I'm going to ask some Airbnb hosts and see if interacting with Airbnb to them feels more like contracting with broker services or more like an listing an electronic classifieds ad. It's a fascinating psychological angle.)

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

#84

Post by rayiner »

southphillyman wrote: post #30

I'm confused by the responses in here so far. How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged? If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple. If that's a problem use craigslist or some other service so you can use whatever prejudices you have to screen guests.

I would be very surprised if the probability of a guest damaging your property is not a function of gender, age, and economic class. There is a reason car insurance costs for young male drivers with bad credit are higher.

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

#85

Post by exclusiv »

ekianjo wrote: post #42
untog wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What's relevant is that AirBnB is against the Freedom of Owners to select who stays at their place. In the end Owners should have the final word, no matter what, certainly not AirBnB.

I agree even if AirBnB is the booking driver.

1) AirBnB has a history of poor support for hosts that have troublesome renters.

2) AirBnB does a terrible job screening renters.

3) This could be easily used against a host improperly. I had a group of sorority girls that wanted to book my house. They told me they had almost 40 women so I declined. I don't have a problem with women but this could be used against me in a legal battle. You have to discriminate as a host. If 10 young guys wanted to book my house too my radar would be off that they MIGHT be there for a party. It has nothing to do with being a bigot against age or gender but minimizing risk which AirBnB does not help with.

If they enforce instant book I could be stuck with 40 women at my house in a city I'm legally approved for advertising and sleeping 14 (it's based on 200 sq ft per person). AirBnB doesn't have all the local rules.

4) Let's say someone is bigoted and they own a house - if you're a potential renter in a group they dislike, do you really want to shell over money to them and stay at their home? Also, what are the chances that the bigoted host is going to provide a good experience or good customer support when required?

These booking sites are taking more money and providing less. They want to drop your ADR like Uber wanted to drop fares for wider appeal. And they avoid all liability. It's getting more and more unfriendly for hosts.

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

#86

Post by rmxt »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #63
Frondo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please learn some history. Businesses in the American south were legally required to discriminate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws One of the major motivations in keeping Jim Crow laws was to prevent economic competition (a "race to the bottom") between whites and non-whites. See also FDR's pro-union/pro-white policies.

Linking to Wikipedia without expounding which details you are referring to is a bit of sleight of hand. Specifically, what part of "separate but equal" [1] "legally required" that "separate" facilities for blacks have poorer conditions than the facilities for whites? I speculate that it's embedded cultural beliefs of hatred and superiority/inferiority (or, at a minimum, apathy) that caused those poorer conditions and discrimination to happen much more so than anything that was "legally required" or based on economic concerns.

Also, the issue at hand for Airbnb is specifically about hosts discriminating against potential guests. How do hosts that discriminate against guests encourage a "race to the bottom"? There might be parallels between discrimination a la Jim Crow and discrimination a la Airbnb hosts, but they aren't in the form of economic concerns. Your snark about learning history seems misplaced.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson#Significanc...

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

#87

Post by guelo »

brightball wrote: post #27
dilap wrote: post #6

I don't know if this is really a tractable problem. At the end of the day, either airbnb lets hosts decide who stays or doesn't. If they don't let hosts decide, they'll likely lose a ton of hosts, since having someone stay in your home is a very personal thing and a huge risk. If they do, then they're going to have significant discrimination problems as long as people are discriminatory, i.e., basically forever.

That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem. We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite o…

> We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US.

Freedom is a relative thing. Here we have AirBnB's freedom to not want racist hosts vs white supremacist's freedom to use AirBnB. The only freedom the ideal of USA is supposed to grant you is freedom from too much government meddling.

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

#88

Post by kchoudhu »

I've historically had trouble getting people to respond to my lodging requests on AirBNB. I learned quickly to let my (white) wife do the bookings for our family. When I'm traveling on my own, it's just easier (and frequently cheaper) to just check into a traditional hotel.

It's an intractable problem, and I don't see a good way forward for AirBNB.

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

#89

Post by apendleton »

nanny wrote: post #49
tyoverby wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? > Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. The fact that the author of your parent-comment does go through and approve individuals means that this policy would hurt him/her.

What evidence is there that instant booking guests are more destructive than others? >The fact that the author of your parent-comment does go through and approve individuals means that this policy would hurt him/her. How, exactly? It sounds like he talked to his destructive guest before the rental. So that particular guest was not an instant booking.

> What evidence is there that instant booking guests are more destructive than others?

OP isn't saying that they are, they're saying that they now want to apply a new screen (out-of-town-ness) that they think is evidence of not being destructive, but would be unable to do so if Airbnb forced everyone to allow instant bookings.

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

#90

Post by jasode »

dragonwriter wrote: post #72
jasode wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The use of a service like AirBnB would seem to place a rental act squarely within this limitation, and thus outside of the exception. I don't think it would be. The extra verbiage about a "broker/agent" is more of a secondary definition to help the law pin down properties that are "commercial". In other words, if you're paying the high price of contracting a broker, you're 99.99% likely not to be renting out a perso…

> The extra verbiage about a "broker/agent" is more of a secondary definition No, its not. Its an express limitation on the applicability of the homeowner exception, and applies to any use of any rental (or sale) services of a broker, agent, or person in the business of renting (or selling) real estate in support of a discriminatory rental, after December 31, 1969. Its only legal (since 1970) under the federal fair h…

>No, its not. Its an express limitation on the applicability of the homeowner exception, [...]

To be clear, my response was not disagreeing with this part.

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