INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The New York City Council has voted in favor of a new law requiring Airbnb and similar home-share companies to share data on their users
The company has fought the law tooth and nail, but city authorities say it basically common sense for the local government to be informed of
the number and nature of residents using the service.
The law was characterized by the council as one that would &provide the City with an
additional tool to enforce the laws against illegal short term rentals.&
&This bill is about transparency and bringing accountability to
billion-dollar companies who are not being good neighbors,& explained NYC Councilwoman Carlina Rivera.
You can read the text here; what it
amounts to is that Airbnb is required to collect and present the following information monthly:
Name, physical address, email, Airbnb
profile URL, and phone number of hosts active that month
Addresses and URLs of any properties a given host rents out, and whether it was a
full-home or partial-home rental
Total days the property was rented, rent/price paid, and any fees collected by Airbnb
Failure to do so will
result in a substantial fine: $1,500 or more per item, depending on the listing
Some of this data has already been provided voluntarily by Airbnb for a year and a half in monthly reports for its New York operations; here
one it totally coincidentally issued today.
It is however one thing to give statistics like average amount earned per month in this or that
borough, and quite another to say Jane Jamison of 224 East 85th St
earned $3,712 from 12 nights at this address and 8 at her second place over in Brooklyn.
The granularity of the data matters
In the first case, Airbnb is in a position of power, voluntarily granting data more or less of its own choosing, while also protecting the
But in the second case, hosts can be identified individually for all kinds of purposes: fines, taxes, licenses, inspections and so on.
It
not ideal for Airbnb or hosts, both of which will have their liberty curtailed considerably by the mere fact of their commerce being open
for inspection by the city and potentially released publicly as part of studies, lawsuits and so on.
But as with so many other new
industries that have gotten ahead of regulation, this kind of clampdown was inevitable from the start; how long did Airbnb really think it
could get away with its limited disclosure of data so obviously valuable to local government fighting skyrocketing rents, property scams,
unscrupulous landlords and so on
New York City report pins millions in rent hikes on Airbnb
Airbnb says that the whole thing is bought and
paid for by the hotel industry, which of course does have an enormous interest in keeping its thumb pressed firmly down on this new
challenger.
&We&re not surprised the City Council refused to meet with their own constituents who rely on home sharing to pay the bills and
then voted to protect the profits of big hotels,& Airbnb thundered in one of its usual bombastic statements
&The fix was in from the start and now New Yorkers will be subject to unchecked, aggressive harassment and privacy violations, rubber
stamped by the City Council.&
But while Airbnb may be a young company, it is fabulously rich and extremely politically active, so this
argument comes off as a bit disingenuous
We&ve seen similar rants from other unregulated companies as they run headlong into the red tape and inertia inherent to the
establishment.
Airbnb aims to be ‘ready& to go public from June 30, 2019, creates cash bonus program for staff
What the harassment and
violations comprise isn&t clear
Certainly there is one man suing the city, saying he was targeted with housing code violations after speaking out against the proposed law;
Airbnb is paying his legal fees.
But the city says its targets are bad actors, people running what amount to off-the-books hotels, renting
units with unsafe conditions, or keeping housing units off the market for long-term residents so they can make a greater profit off
visitors.
There no doubt that, armed with this more complete information, city authorities will have the opportunity to do legal and
financial harm to the people who are taking part in this technically unsanctioned but largely harmless (and in many ways beneficial)
business.
If they&re going to require this information to be disclosed, users of Airbnb and other services deserve to know exactly what it
It not enough to say that bad actors are being targeted when a man who opposed the city has $30,000 in fines leveled at him the next
week.
Regulation is necessary for healthy and safe industry, and data is necessary for regulation, so this bill seems reasonable to me and
to the city council members who voted for it in overwhelming majority
But it only part of the puzzle; citizens should feel that their elected officials are acting to protect them, not expose them.
