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NY's Attorney General Demands All Data On NYC AirBNB Rentals

from the chilling-effects dept

Mon, Oct 7th 2013 4:02pm — Mike Masnick

What is it with states attorneys general and their attacks on innovation? The latest news is that NY's AG, Eric Schneiderman, is demanding data from AirBnB on all 15,000 users in NYC who have rented out their place. This comes after a ruling back in May saying that an apartment owner renting out his place was guilty of running an illegal hotel (that was just overturned). Of course, the very day that original ruling happened, I'd been trying to rent a place in NYC on AirBnB -- and I even had a guy who had agreed to rent me the place pull back, saying that because of the legal issues he was removing his apartment from the site. I'm about to go to NYC again, and have another AirBnB place lined up -- but am now nervous that this one, too, will disappear.

The NY AG's office claims that they're only going after a small number of "bad" AirBnB users, mainly "landlords doing long-term illegal rentals," but if that's the case, why does it need information on 15,000 users. If anything, that's going to create massive chilling effects. Services like AirBnB provide tremendous amount of value on both sides of the equation -- homeowners are able to make extra cash (sometimes significant amounts) while travelers are able to rent out nice places at lower rates than hotels. It's a good deal that's pretty efficient across the board. The NY AG's office claims that this leaves out neighbors who may be impacted, but it seems like there are much better ways to deal with neighbor problems than having to go trolling through all of AirBnB's records.

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Filed Under: attorney general, eric schneiderman, landlords, ny, nyc, rentals
Companies: airbnb

12 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 4:57pm

*Sigh* All right Mike, what were you planning to do in your rented place? Go on tell us, we're all friends here.
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Alan Simpson, 7 Oct 2013 @ 5:14pm

Airbnb
We need to remember like everything else - This is for the Children.
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miatajim (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 5:38pm

"What is it with states attorneys general and their attacks on....."

Simple, Local guy builds name goes to congress. After 4-10 years lobbying "job" for life.
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Paraquat (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 5:55pm

fighting terrorism
The government needs AirBnB's records to fight terrorism. If they had that info back in 2001, the World Trade Center would never have been destroyed. Bin Laden uses AirBnB, sends his emails via LavaBit, uses open-source software (thus violating Microsoft's software patents), and sings "Happy Birthday" without paying copyright royalties. Only when these are banned worldwide will we be safe.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:36pm

This type of short term rental is pretty common throughout the rest of the world, what is so special about New York that this can't be done in New York. Is there not enough Kick-Back to city officials.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:44pm

Re: fighting terrorism
Actually, maybe this is to do with the War on Terrorism. I imagine it's much harder to surreptitiously gather guest records from some random homeowner than it is from an established business.

The goal here was clearly not to act silently (otherwise they would've used a gag order), but to try to discourage people from using services that don't cooperate with the NSA/Homeland Security/etc.
A bit anti-competitive there, but I suppose capitalism is a small sacrifice in the eternal war against Terror.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 8:02pm

Re:
Simple, peasants engaging in land owning and renting? Why that is simply unacceptable to the nobility.
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Pixelation, 7 Oct 2013 @ 9:13pm

It's likely obvious why Eric Schneiderman wants all of the records. Just follow the money. Find out the amount of contributions he's getting from the hotel industry and you'll have your answer.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 2:20am

Hotel tax
Hotel taxes and fees are big business. I suspect NY thinks they aren't getting everything they desire.

Example: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/business/hotel.shtml
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nasch (profile), 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:29am

Chilling effects
If anything, that's going to create massive chilling effects.

There's a good chance that is the whole point.
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wayout, 8 Oct 2013 @ 6:46am

Yep, just follow the money.."Hotel taxes and fees are big business"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 8:10am

no need to panic. the information the NYC AG is after is only metadata, so it wont give away anything much. just ask your local NSA representative. they'll reassure you!!
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