Airbnb outlines where it's willing to compromise with regulators
And where it's not.
Airbnb is changing policy in a bid to improve its lobbying powers and help establish itself within city and regional regulations. Having failed in its recent New York lawsuit, it's now attempting to get to some kind of middle ground. It's drawn up a list of "policy recommendations", alongside issues that Airbnb reckons are in the self-interest of government and not the public. The company may have limited power to affect policy, but it's now at least illustrating concessions that it's willing to make.. in order get more hosting properties, more guests and more sweet profit.
Perhaps the most notable part is how the property / homestay hub says it's willing to help municipalities collect tax revenue through voluntary collection agreements -- money governments can then spend how they want. It's also interested in equitable revenue sharing, helping building owners (say, the entity or person that owns a block of apartments) collect some of revenue from tenants that host on Airbnb.
It's also promising to better deal with the company's own issues and shortcomings: sketchy hostels and part houses, combating discrimination and helping enforce local laws where host violate local home-sharing laws. Airbnb would also be willing to release annual transparency reports along with some anonymized data to governments.
Airbnb says it wants to stand ground on zoning, where users are discriminated against based on the zoning laws in certain neighborhoods. (As TechCrunch notes, there were issues in New Orleans when the French Quarter was excluded. It's also unwilling to build security passthroughs for governments to access user data.
Beyond large-scale restrictions of homes a homeowner can list on Airbnb, the company won't limit its service to a one-host one-home rule — Airbnb has been forced to make exceptions in NYC and San Francisco. And, naturally, it wants "fairness", so that local laws won't benefit one home-sharing platform over another. Read the full breakdown of its policy "tool chest" over at Airbnb.
