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Worldwide: Short-term rental platforms, including Vrbo [an Expedia Group brand] and TripAdvisor, are tightening their safety policies for travellers in the wake of allegations of violent crimes taking place at Airbnb listings.
The former has made the decision to ban hosts from leaving keys in public places “where the owner, property manager or staff is not present”, while TripAdvisor is also in the process of updating its policy on the safe transfer of keys to guests, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.
Allegations of violent crimes committed at Airbnb listings resurfaced recently, after an Australian tourist was reported to have raped at knife point in her New York City rental property on New Year’s Eve six years ago. The woman is believed to have obtained the keys to the apartment at a local convenience store without having to provide a form of identification, and when she arrived, her attacker had picked up a duplicate set of keys.
Airbnb spokesman Ben Breit told Bloomberg that the company had been “working to strengthen our community policies and enforcement procedures” without disclosing specific details about new key exchange policies.
The allegations have prompted calls for rental companies to be liable for content published on their platforms, including from New York state senator Liz Krueger, who said resident and tourist safety is being put at risk because users have “no guarantees and no real protections” when staying at a short-term rental.
Airbnb has long disputed arguments that it should have its operations restricted by local regulations because it is an ‘information service provider’, citing Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The Act provides immunity from civil liabilities for information service providers that remove or restrict content from their services that they deem “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected”.
The issue of enforcing safety policies on platforms has never made it to the courts without being settled beforehand by trial, in part due to the fact that user disputes are decided confidentially through Airbnb’s terms of service agreement.
Earlier this year, Democratic senators Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill to restrict the protection provided under Section 230, meaning that platforms could not be so easily shielded when alleged violations of federal or state laws or civil actions concerning a wrongful death come to light.
Last month, reports revealed that Airbnb had been spending approximately $50 million a year to keep serious incidents in its rentals out of the press through the use of a “black box” team.
Cash was given to both hosts and guests so that they would not “imply responsibility or liability” on Airbnb. The payments came through the form of blank checks that are provided to members of the “black box” team by the company, which went public in December.
