Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jacquesm 3519 days ago
They are extending 'their website and business' into private property. That's a direct conflict without resolution, I confidently predict nothing will change and this is just window-dressing.

Yes indeed, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website and business, and their customers property is not their business.

> if you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked article.

Yes, you can ignore it, or you can move to a competitor and so on. Airbnb simply is not in a position to force anybody to accept guests they do not want to entertain for whatever reason, that's the way they set things up because that is the easiest for them. To now retro-fit a requirement that you can't discriminate is there to look good, not for you to stop discriminating. The only way they could enforce that is by forcing Airbnb hosts to accept all guests without the ability to refuse any of them and that will never happen.

3 comments

I feel like this in argument which has been had so many times on HN but >They are extending 'their website and business' into private property.

They offer a service with terms, you either accept those terms or you don't no one is forcing you to use their service.

On the matter of enforcement, I agree this would be near impossible to enforce in all but the most obvious of cases of discrimination.

Those terms and conditions are meaningless without across the board enforcement.
Or AirBnB will face increasing levels of regulation, somewhat like the NYT did under the Fair Housing Act.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/14/nyregion/times-adopts-a-ne...

I guess suddenly it will seem like there are a disproportionally large number of mixed couples in the area.
This means that you believe AirBNB will never ban a host for racism?
No, it means they will ban a couple of hosts to 'set an example' and then move on because there is no money in getting rid of hosts short of the most horrible (and probably press-worthy) cases.

This is a typical case of CYA.