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There is very clear distinction on something being illegal and something being not defined by law. AirBnB case, at least from what I know on most of countries,
by cowl 5y ago
There is very clear distinction on something being illegal and something being not defined by law.
AirBnB case, at least from what I know on most of countries, the law did not forbid this type activity and yes leaving your house for a couple of days to someone you know for a small recompense was already in use. It didn't make sense to regulate it by law before because it was rare enough. When AirBnB made it usable for the mases then the regulations started to comeup because in that case it started to become a real business. This does not mean it was Illegal before. it was just undefined. The same for example with the data Privacy laws, GDPR etc. these are regulations that have come up as a response to undefined behavior not as a response to illegal behavior.
- capableweb 5y agoIt's true that laws around leaving your house for a couple of days and renting out temporary didn't require you to setup a business and have a tax ID at hand. It still required paying taxes though, which many avoided. But that was not the only use of AirBnb, tons of properties were bought and used only for driving what essentially is a hotel in those properties, without registering with the proper entity and paying the appropriate amount of taxes. This was not legal, and never was, as hotels need to have a license, yet AirBnb allowed those entities to continue running on the website until the courts got involved. If that's not skirting the law, I don't know what is. Now of course, AirBnb requires its users to specify their tax ID before they can let out their places on AirBnb, as the law (already existing since before AirBnb) requires.