In an announcement today, Airbnb, the peer-to-peer short-term housing rental network, agreed to a request from New York State's Attorney General for anonymized records of users in the city.
This ends a six-month battle, and sets a precedent for other investigations into travel company practices.
From the statement:
"Under the terms of the agreement we announced today:
Airbnb will provide the Attorney General with anonymized data about our hosts in New York. This data will not include names, addresses or other personally-identifiable information.
The Attorney General’s Office will have one year to review the anonymized data and receive information from us about individual hosts who may be subject to further investigation.
We believe the Attorney General’s Office is focused on large corporate property managers and hosts who take apartments off the market and disrupt communities.
We have already removed more than 2,000 listings in New York and believe that many of the hosts the Attorney General is concerned about are no longer a part of Airbnb.
We will provide even more information to hosts about the laws in New York. Hosts will see additional information before they list their space and we’ll email every host in New York with information about the law."
See the full Airbnb statement, here.
As Tnooz has reported, Airbnb hosts, under New York state law, could get fined if they are reported to the police for violating laws regarding short-term rentals in the city.
Airbnb defended one of its users who was fined. A New York appeal board sided with the user and the startup and overturned the fine.
A citywide petition has asked for a change to the laws.
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