Airbnb must have been sick and tired of being on the receiving end of grievances from cities that claim how the business model of short term rentals among its customers are not only illegal, but are also a ‘drain’ on the community. This has led to Airbnb doing away with over 2,000 New York City listings which have yet to offer a quality, local experience to guests (do remember that Airbnb intends to target the “premium hotel experience” as according to what they shared last month). Airbnb has yet to clarify on what this listing removal means, but it happened after the state Attorney General filed an affidavit that supports a subpoena for Airbnb customer info. In that particular filing, it touts that 67% of NYC rentals happen to break the law through the act of subletting a whole apartment without having the official tenants present. Not only that, the 17 hosts who are allegedly the biggest abusers of this system has been named and shamed.
Airbnb still loves their Shared City initiative, citing that cities such as Amsterdam, Hamburg and Paris “have embraced home-sharing and Shared City is our effort to do even more to make cities around the world even stronger.” Airbnb believes that this would make neighborhoods “better places to live, work and visit.” We do wonder what Airbnb will do on the legal front to go up against what they’re facing at the moment.
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