
Airbnb refuses to hand over users' data - fourmii
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/08/airbnb-new-york-users-data
======
JumpCrisscross
AirBnB appears to have navigated New York politics in a naive and
inexperienced manner. Uber made a similar mistake early on, but graduated to a
more sophisticated approach which involved working with local regulations as
opposed to trying to bulldoze through them. Announcing that they are refusing
to comply with a New York State AG's subpoena, versus more subtly seeking a
backdoor face-saving solution, continues AirBnB's streak.

An acquaintance, living in a building whose management was very tolerant of
the short-term rental of its units, recently saw a double-digit rent increase.
The owner believed, probably correctly, that he was better off leasing his
apartment to a series of short-term stayers versus a long-term tenant.
Ignoring rental and regulatory volatility, this makes sense.

Point is, the gripes are real. They are also the kinds of social disagreements
politics is designed to deal with. Blowing past that will probably backfire,
particularly in New York.

~~~
qwerta
New York state has all rights to protects its interest. But they should do it
case by case, not by spamming everyone who happened to be on some list.

~~~
bsullivan01
The NY State AG is used as a stepping stone for higher office. They have more
money than god and Schneiderman is loving this fight. Airbnb is not going to
win here.

A judge will decide it but he will probably get the info on all the people
that have rented their places _for under 30 days._

~~~
samstave
We need so many more people just standing up and saying "no, fuck off" to
overly intrusive government.

It's getting tiring where the USG at all levels is so busy farking over the
freedoms of citizens while being utterly incompetent, wasteful and useless on
so many other fronts.

It seems that denouncing the government is the only truly patriotic action one
can now take.

------
apaprocki
Lots of people immediately jump to the "hotel industry protection" line of
reasoning here. There's a pretty good write-up from 2010 covering common myths
and reasons for wanting short-term rental protection in a place like NYC. I
recommend everyone read this if this topic interests you:

"What New York State's Illegal Hotels Law Means for Travelers"

[http://www.frommers.com/articles/6912.html](http://www.frommers.com/articles/6912.html)

------
potatolicious
Is there anything preventing the AG from subpoenaing strictly the records of
people who actually fit the bill of what they're looking for?

According to the WSJ[1] the investigation is looking strictly at "people who
might be trying to skirt New York's laws by renting out multiple units or
obtaining their primary residence through Airbnb for extended periods"

It seems like this can be accomplished without a whole-hog dump of every NYC-
area landlord. Why not have AirBnb dump this data, with a neutral third party
auditing?

One thing that doesn't smell right though:

> _" Airbnb has about 15,000 hosts—or people who share their living
> space—spread out among New York City's five boroughs, with 87% of them
> renting out the homes that they live in."_

I call shenanigans on this. I've done searches throughout NYC as a curiosity
exercise last time this topic came up. "Whole apartment" listings _vastly_
outnumber "room in apartment" or "shared room" listings. The notion that the
vast majority of Airbnb landlords are present, or renting out parts of their
existing homes, does not seem to bear out in reality.

[1]
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230444140457912...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304441404579121864021592746.html)

~~~
nknighthb
It says "renting out the homes that they live in". Things it does not say:
"renting out part of the homes that they live in" and "are present in the home
during the rental period".

If I'm on the other side of the planet for a few weeks, I still live in my
home in Washington, although I am not present at that time.

~~~
potatolicious
It still doesn't bear out from what I've seen.

Sadly, AirBnb doesn't have an API I can poke at to make it more scientific -
but I went through a bunch of listings in NYC a few days ago, and nearly all
of the "whole apartment" listings are professional operations that operate
year-round, not ad hoc arrangements (i.e., "I'm out of town, take my place").

One easy way to tell is to take a peek at the property's calendar. I'm pretty
sure regular bookings for months at a time suggests it's not exactly someone
renting out their primary residence.

------
awwstn
The effective approach that has let Uber thrive in battles like this is to
leverage thier community.

Everywhere you look at the Uber debate, the story is told as members of the
community standing up to the old guard – but the airbnb story right now feels
like an insurgent brand standing up to the authorities.

With Uber, the story always resembles this:
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/dc-city-council-shelves-
ube...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/dc-city-council-shelves-uber-
amendment-against-discounted-private-cars-road-looking-clearer-for-uberx/)

~~~
MAGZine
I think this is the only way to go about getting change. If you just comply
from square one, officials preceive no problem.

If you want change, you need to make people realize that there is a problem
with the current system... and ignoring the laws, and then working to get them
changed after the problem has been realized (a la Uber) seems to be a lot more
effective.

You can't get people excited to change something they don't know/care about!

------
27182818284
It is kind of mission critical that they don't, correct? I have stayed in one
lady's place who even mentioned to us that it wasn't exactly kosher with the
landlord, but she was going out of town for a conference anyway and would be
gone for the week.

I see it as mission critical because it would be too easy for landlords to
take that information and use it against people.

~~~
apaprocki
As someone on the condo board of a building, I can guarantee you that we don't
need any data dump to locate people illegally renting out units in our
building. We regularly look on AirBnB and VRBO for units within our building
that are easily identifiable through the photographs in the listing and fine
anyone in violation of the condo rules.

~~~
gojomo
Other than the fact that such rentals are against the rules (malum
prohibitum), has your condo board seen actual damages from such website-
mediated-rentals, making the practice wrong in-and-of-itself (malum in se)?

The rules probably date back to when such arrangments were often quite sketchy
and informal, whereas the Airbnb era adds traceable payments/stay-records,
sticky reputations linked to real-world identities, and a commercial-entity's
own "guarantee" against harms. So would the board consider waiving those rules
under certain situations? It seems the _option_ to rent out property in some
cases will protect or improve the property's value... which I presume is one
of the major goals of the condo board.

~~~
apaprocki
The rules date back to when I and the rest of the board put them into effect a
few months ago. I can't imagine a situation where the option to short-term
rent will ever increase property value. We have had short-term rental guests
not obey other condo rules and cause damage / mess within the common areas of
the building. The minimum rental period in our building is 12 months and we do
not wish anyone sharing our common elements for a time period less than that.
Everyone in the building is free to disagree, vote us out, then change the
policy, but no one has expressed any desire to change this policy.

~~~
gojomo
Thanks for your answers. Do you know if the problematic short-term guests came
via Airbnb or some other avenue?

"No one has expressed any desire to change the policy" \- not even the people
who've been fined? (Were they renters subletting, or owners flaunting the
rules?)

~~~
apaprocki
The unit that caused the biggest problem was listed on 2+ sites, so it is
unclear which guests came from which platform. The person previously renting
(an owner) ignored multiple requests to stop and only stopped when a fine was
introduced. In the NYC market these situations can be very profitable so it is
in the renter's/owner's interest to break the rules as much as they feel they
can get away with until the equation no longer becomes profitable. This is how
condo boards fight the situation -- the fines have to be heavy enough that it
impacts the profitability of the entire concept. The condo board is in a
position to put a lien on the unit for the money owed, so owners can not
ignore the rules without potentially severe consequences.

~~~
gojomo
But it's clearly more than "no one" would would like to pursue this profitable
opportunity without fines, right? (Maybe they're the kind of people who don't
show up and vote at condo association meetings, but presumably they're not
voting in favor of the rules/fines but then blatantly violating them.)

------
JackFr
If Elliot Spitzer were still the AG, RICO would have been invoked already and
they AirBnB officers would be looking at jail time.

Some violations of the Multiple Dwelling Law are misdemeanors while others are
civil penalties. But in so far as NYC is concerned, AirBnB is facilitating and
profiting from illegal acts.

------
joering2
Seems like Airbnb wants to wrestle with the long arm of the government. This
will be an interesting to watch, although the saying goes: you don't wrestle
with a pig. You will get dirt and the big likes it. And Feds will most likely
love to get any reason to reopen the FBI probe into Nathan's case.

[http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-
airbnbs-c...](http://gawker.com/5853754/the-seedy-spammy-past-of-airbnbs-
co+founder)

------
Mikeb85
I don't see why this is surprising.

When you rent out a space there are laws designed to protect the renter, and
many leases have clauses prohibiting subletting. Odds are many of these
laws/contracts are being broken, so what do you expect?

Because it's an internet start-up you're allowed to break the law?

~~~
auctiontheory
_Because it 's an internet start-up you're allowed to break the law?_

Well yes, that's what they're saying. "Internet is different" is the very
principle Amazon invoked to not collect sales tax for years. (I'm not saying I
agree.)

~~~
dragonwriter
> "Internet is different" is the very principle Amazon invoked to not collect
> sales tax for years.

No, its not; Amazon sought to have legal rulings that had been applied to
remote selling (by mail and telephone order) applied to remote selling by
internet in _exactly the same way that they had been applied to other means of
remote selling_.

It was exactly the _opposite_ of "Internet is different."

~~~
Nutella4
Amazon claimed it had no physical presence in California so that they would
fall under the existing laws. That's not true, though. Lots of Amazon
employees work in California. They got very creative with the definition of
"Amazon" and "employee" to make the claim.

------
davidf18
As a long-term occupant of Manhattan, I (and others) believe that AirBnB
ignores the feelings of those of us that want safety and security in our
apartment buildings and that we certainly do not want strangers living there.

I'm only sorry that the AG didn't go after AirBnB earlier.

------
not_that_noob
The reason Uber can work with the government is that they are taking on the
taxi cartel on behalf of city residents. They are therefore aligned with
voters, who the pols care about.

AirBnB otoh is aligned with a small minority of owners against the larger
number of renters pissed off that their already high rents are exploding. The
pols are taking these actions because voters are upset. AirBnB are on the
wrong side of the divide. This may thus end badly for them in NY. Other cities
will copy NY, and so this is a fundamental challenge to their core value prop.

------
antr
If it were Goldman Sachs refusing to hand over customer data all hell would
break loose.

------
smackfu
> It also prohibits residents of certain buildings from renting their
> accommodations for under 30 days.

That is not how I would summarize the law. It prohibits residents of _most_
buildings from renting for under 30 days. The exclusions are mainly around
existing buildings that would violate the law, without Airbnb style rentals,
namely university-owned buildings that are used for short-term rentals in the
summer and older buildings that are apartment/hotel mixes.

------
debacle
They sort of have to - if they hand over user data, it will be a huge blow to
their current and future business.

~~~
thejulielogan
Actually, legally, they sort of have to give up the data. They are taking a
risk not handing over the data, thankfully it's the right risk to take. The
law is malleable for a reason; laws often become outdated.

Business wise they should to do this, yes, but that still doesn't mean it's an
easy "they sort of have to" situation.

~~~
smackfu
>The law is malleable for a reason; laws often become outdated.

The law in question was pretty much created to stop Airbnb-style short-term
rentals.

~~~
thejulielogan
very quickly became outdated, then ;)

------
mrcactu5

      225,000 New Yorkers have signed up to Airbnb.
    

WHAT?? According to Wikipedia New York has 3,021,588 households. 7% of New
York households are certainly livable but not good enough to rent out.

I would like to side with Chesky if he gives up his data and New Yorkers
spruce of their apartments...

~~~
ye
> _7% of New York households are certainly livable but not good enough to rent
> out._

That statement makes no sense. Every single household can be rented out, it's
only a question of price.

~~~
mrcactu5
fine... every roach-infested apartment can be rented out regardless of whether
it has running hot water or heat in the winter time, air conditioning etc.
indeed there is a sucker born every minute.

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throwit1979
Um. What possible jurisdiction can New York State have over a California
company with no offices in New York?

Probably best to tell this AG to go piss up a rope privately and dispense with
useless press releases like this.

------
mfieldhouse
What benefit does having this law give? 'It also prohibits residents of
certain buildings from renting their accommodations for under 30 days'

~~~
seany
Protection for the hotel industry?

~~~
Mikeb85
Hotels are a tough business, running one isn't easy (actually very difficult),
and they're considered to be pretty essential to our society.

There's much more money in the tech industry.

It's about protecting consumers...

------
gojomo
Time for BitcoinBnb? The Silk Roadhouse?

------
chrislaco
Fine. Change this to a "membership fee" for your private club and walk away.

