> The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal.
Agreed; I believe the problems posed to AirBnB's model are more severe that most commenters seem to recognize. Further, the countermeasures many are suggesting are problematic in their own right. e.g. Troy in Techcrunch post said:
"Also, go with your gut. My gut said something wasn’t right about the people that rented my place, but I didn’t know how to handle that gut feeling..."
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that depending on specifics, both the Fair Housing Act and the ADA can apply to hotel rentals. If you create a situation where people are empowered to decline a rental because they "got a bad gut feeling" about the renter, you open up yet another legal can of worms.
I have nothing against the AirBnB guys - I'm actually rooting for them. However I think it's time for them to step up their game and start tackling these issues head on instead of hiding from them, which seems to have been their strategy to date.
Agreed; I believe the problems posed to AirBnB's model are more severe that most commenters seem to recognize. Further, the countermeasures many are suggesting are problematic in their own right. e.g. Troy in Techcrunch post said:
"Also, go with your gut. My gut said something wasn’t right about the people that rented my place, but I didn’t know how to handle that gut feeling..."
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that depending on specifics, both the Fair Housing Act and the ADA can apply to hotel rentals. If you create a situation where people are empowered to decline a rental because they "got a bad gut feeling" about the renter, you open up yet another legal can of worms.
I have nothing against the AirBnB guys - I'm actually rooting for them. However I think it's time for them to step up their game and start tackling these issues head on instead of hiding from them, which seems to have been their strategy to date.