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Their post talks about people "abusing" their platform. I'm taking that to imply that owning a property to list solely on AirBnB is "abuse". Renting out an ent

Their post talks about people "abusing" their platform. I'm taking that to imply that owning a property to list solely on AirBnB is "abuse". Renting out an entire apartment can be selected to answer the second question on their signup process. https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/new https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/new Reading through the various hospitality pages, I don't see anything saying it's only to be used casually to rent out an apartment while you're away. The "Responsible Hosting" page (https://www.airbnb.ca/help/responsible-hosting https://www.airbnb.ca/help/responsible-hosting) seems region specific, but still doesn't say anything along the lines of "renting on AirBnB full time is considered abuse". For something they consider abusive, there doesn't seem to be any large warnings against doing it.

yebyen 12y ago
They really didn't specify what "abusing" means, so I don't know how you could infer that from the article. For all we know, a person who is an abusive user means a person who holds multiple leases on separate apartments where a no-sublet clause is in the lease, and rents all of them out simultaneously (pocketing the difference over their rental rate) while providing no further services other than a key drop. They also drew a pretty clear line between the time when (a) "we banned some users we considered abusive" and with (b) "the state of New York asked for information pertaining to a subset of our users in New York, which had a substantial intersection with our banned list from (a)". It's also clear from the article that they don't know what criteria were used by NYS investigators to select 124 users for closer investigation.
jdmichal 12y ago
I believe they meant the term "abusive" in the relative sense of New York law, not in the relative sense of AirBnB or its terms of service. I interpret the statement as meaning, "abusing the AirBnB platform to circumvent or break New York law."
- preinheimer 12y ago
  According to a different reply here, all postings of under 30 days are illegal. I can't imagine only 140 of their New York postings are offering places for less than 30 days. There must be other selection criteria.
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    All "whole apartment" postings under 30 days are illegal. Sharing an apartment with a host is legal - though you may still be in violation of your lease. I believe the term "abusive" here means "users whose behavior doesn't support our narrative of a populist/grassroots service". This would probably mean people who listed multiple properties, since that doesn't play into AirBnb's desired image as helping "regular people" make ends meet.
    - JohnTHaller 12y ago
      If you do a quick search of Manhattan, you'll see that a majority of their listings are of the illegal whole apartment variety.

yebyen 12y ago

They really didn't specify what "abusing" means, so I don't know how you could infer that from the article. For all we know, a person who is an abusive user means a person who holds multiple leases on separate apartments where a no-sublet clause is in the lease, and rents all of them out simultaneously (pocketing the difference over their rental rate) while providing no further services other than a key drop. They also drew a pretty clear line between the time when (a) "we banned some users we considered abusive" and with (b) "the state of New York asked for information pertaining to a subset of our users in New York, which had a substantial intersection with our banned list from (a)". It's also clear from the article that they don't know what criteria were used by NYS investigators to select 124 users for closer investigation.

jdmichal 12y ago

I believe they meant the term "abusive" in the relative sense of New York law, not in the relative sense of AirBnB or its terms of service. I interpret the statement as meaning, "abusing the AirBnB platform to circumvent or break New York law."

preinheimer 12y ago
According to a different reply here, all postings of under 30 days are illegal. I can't imagine only 140 of their New York postings are offering places for less than 30 days. There must be other selection criteria.
- potatolicious 12y ago
  All "whole apartment" postings under 30 days are illegal. Sharing an apartment with a host is legal - though you may still be in violation of your lease. I believe the term "abusive" here means "users whose behavior doesn't support our narrative of a populist/grassroots service". This would probably mean people who listed multiple properties, since that doesn't play into AirBnb's desired image as helping "regular people" make ends meet.
  - JohnTHaller 12y ago
    If you do a quick search of Manhattan, you'll see that a majority of their listings are of the illegal whole apartment variety.