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Comment by dahdum | Hacker News Reader

'On Wednesday, when I e-mailed Papas about criticism of arbitration, he replied, “Our policies are similar to most companies and we’ve found that arbitration is an effective way to resolve many issues.” Then Papas made another striking point: that “guests also retain the ability to take action against hosts.” In other words, Airbnb’s customers can sue homeowners for discrimination, even while they’re barred from suing Airbnb itself.'

Surprised by that encouragement from Airbnb, this a scary prospect for homeowners using the platform. Even untrue allegations would sink you in legal costs, with Airbnb washing their hands of all of it.

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There's similar legal prospect all over, if you look for it.

For example, in Texas, homeowners within an HOA can file suit against one another using the rules of the bylaws for cause. Even if/after the HOA decides not to [or stops] pursue action for some violation/infraction.

Edit: fixed a typo

Agreed. I actually don't even understand what ground a discriminated guest would have. A host is not a business, as far as I know everybody can decide who enters their house. That being said I'm not a lawyer.

I think the question revolves around whether a host is a business. If you're a business, all sorts of rules apply that don't apply if you're not. Now here are people taking money in exchange for service, it might be hard to argue they aren't a business.

You are arguing against the legality of airbnb.

In places like Vancouver all hosts are soon going to be required to have business licenses posted on their AirBnB listings.

That's ridiculous. Government overreach. The government should leave people alone.

In the United States, if you're using your property to derive revenues, you are almost certainly a "business" by the legal definitions of the term that'd put you under the purview of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Discrimination is permitted if you're not renting your entire home.

Key takeaway: "Who you bring in to your private home is a very personal decision that the state has no business regulating. This is the part of the opinion that convinced me."

https://blog.splitwise.com/2012/02/07/court-allows-discrimin...

The court opinion: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/02/02/09...

And your private home is a very personal place that has no _business_ involving in regulatable commerce.

Is your house a "private" house or a public hotel? AirBnBers want it both ways.

I spend more time at my office than at home, why is my home more personal?

This may be how you feel, which I can appreciate. I'm simply pointing out that case law has been established that its allowed. If you have a roommate in your home, AirBnB or not, the law lets you discriminate.

So people getting money from paying roomates, doing private lessons (personal training, music, etc), therapy, working remotely, etc have no business of doing so in their home too?

> And your private home is a very personal place that has no _business_ involving in regulatable commerce

Says who?

That was an interesting read, about an area I'd never really considered before. I'm not sure if I'd accept Airbnb guest == roommate, but the overlap might be close enough that I could see the underlying court decision being at least partially applicable.

A host is absolutely a business. Anyone thinking this is just "sharing" has no idea what they're talking about.

Tell that to all the people deducting Airbnb expenses on their taxes.

The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to refuse to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin unless it is part of your own primary residence and has two or less units.

Airbnb is a platform. They can take steps to try to limit and root out discrimination, but it is the hosts themselves who are being discriminatory. Furthermore, hosts have voluntarily signed up to act as a small business owner/landlord. Thus, it seems fair for them to take on much of the legal burden for their individual actions in that role.

Would anyone downvoting me care to articulate why? I'm genuinely curious.

NYT was just a platform allowing people to advertise. They got done under Fair Housing Act because they allowed racist adverts and didn't do enough to stop racist adverts.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/14/nyregion/times-adopts-a-ne...

> In the four-year court fight, The Times sought to dismiss the suit on First Amendment grounds, arguing that the ads were created by advertisers and that the newspaper "merely published the advertisements as submitted."

> But Federal courts ruled against the newspaper, saying that there would be no infringement of press freedoms for a newspaper to refuse advertisements that would, as the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit put it, "to the ordinary reader indicate a racial preference." The United States Supreme Court refused to review the case in 1991.

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