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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

#311

Post by bigiain »

runako wrote: post #43
brightball wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> very public businesses One might argue that posting pictures of the interior of a residence, advertising it for rent by the night, and posting a price for such privilege is what makes a hotel a "very public business." (It's also why regulations apply to hotels.) One might also wonder that if these properties make a hotel or B&B a public business, what's different about AirBnB rentals? Sure enough, back in 1964 the…

"located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire"

I wonder if there's any legal precedents about whether a "single building" like an apartment block, with more than 5 different apartments Airbnb-ing rooms - suddenly and out of the control of any individual tenant - becomes a "place of public accommodation"?

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

#312

Post by ng12 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #77
ekianjo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBnB places are not hotels. In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept, just like you are free to decorate your place the way you wish. It's down to personal preference because it's the Owner's place in the end.

> AirBnB places are not hotels. Often, they are exactly illegal hotels. > In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept You generally aren't legally in the US, with very narrow exceptions, especially if you have a commercial service involved with you in arranging the rental. AirBnB doesn't make the laws, but they are bound by them, and are visible enough that simply ignoring them may no longe…

"Often" is a stretch. I've never seen anything I would classify as a hotel in the US. I have seen them in other countries, e.g. SE Asia, and those were completely legal.

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

#316

Post by massysett »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #284
massysett wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, AirBnB is bidding you good riddance. They obviously want to be some big corporation competing with Marriott, Holiday Inn, etc. They aren't going to get there with people like you. They're going to get there by clearing the way for the professional "hosts" who are, in reality, setting up unlicensed hotels in apartment buildings. If AirBnB is going to get big, they need to have anti-discrimination policies. W…

What percentage of their current revenue do you think comes from large, commercial operations (as opposed to single family homes ... maybe a side property being rented out)? No idea myself, but I would imagine comfortably under 50%....so it's hard to believe AirBnB aiming for this kind of pivot on the customer base, especially the one that got them to where they are today.

They are skating to where the puck is headed. Their future is unlicensed hotels. The "express booking" underscores this. No one renting out a room in his house wants it rented based on an instaclick. Lyft started out with the huge pink mustache and front seat rides. They ditched that stuff fast too.

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

#317

Post by mikestew »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #279
Spooky23 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBNB has already established that they consider themselves very "special". Most other activities happening in your home, including renting out a room to a housemate, are not subject to discrimination laws. If you don't want a particular type of person in your home, you should have that right, whether that's because you have a safety or other concern, or because you are a racist asshole. If AirBNB wants to pretend i…

Agreed completely. This is why shared home adverts are exempt from FHA regulations.

This is not true. Rather than dig through the FHA for you, Craigslist's interpretation is easier to reference: https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA

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

#318

Post by bigiain »

Spooky23 wrote: post #236
runako wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very public businesses One might argue that posting pictures of the interior of a residence, advertising it for rent by the night, and posting a price for such privilege is what makes a hotel a "very public business." (It's also why regulations apply to hotels.) One might also wonder that if these properties make a hotel or B&B a public business, what's different about AirBnB rentals? Sure enough, back in 1964 the…

AirBNB has already established that they consider themselves very "special". Most other activities happening in your home, including renting out a room to a housemate, are not subject to discrimination laws. If you don't want a particular type of person in your home, you should have that right, whether that's because you have a safety or other concern, or because you are a racist asshole. If AirBNB wants to pretend i…

"Considering yourself special" like Airbnb or Uber - doesn't actually make you special.

Renting out a room to another housemate is a very different thing to listing a room for a nightly rate as a commercial transaction.

Whether that automatically means you should be governed by the same laws as a hotel is unclear, but asking whether it might be appropriate is a really important thing to do. The rules society created for hotels weren't just randomly invented rules - we wrote those laws for what we considered very good reasons to prevent certain kinds of discrimination that was actually happening and the we decided was wrong. I think there's a _very_ high chance that Airbnb hosts probably should be held to those same rules or something very similar but less directly aimed at hotels.

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

#319

Post by dang »

fckyrdumb wrote: post #301

And the truth comes out, Rayiner is one of those smug elites who believes he can make decisions for you better than you can make for yourself. His views lead to fascist dictatorships.

Obviously, you can't comment like this here.

We've banned this account and detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12458424 and marked it off-topic.

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

#320

Post by dang »

fckyrdumb wrote: post #299

Will you force women who have been rape victims to accommodate convicted sex offenders? The list of such unappealing pairs isnt small nor knowable, and can really only be determined by the people directly negotiating the room.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453816 and marked it off-topic.
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