Hacker News Reader

Comment by CodeWriter23 | Hacker News Reader

There's no excuse for AirBNB permitting listings of multiple dwellings in the localities that prohibit it. In order to produce the Federally-mandated 1099K, they have to take the host's SSN and keep it on file. Even if someone uses multiple accounts, they can simple compare the SSN of an account adding a listing and reject the listing is the SSN already has a different listing on file for the locality in question.

View on HN

I only gave airbnb my SSN because they were very clear that it would only be kept for purposes of producing my 1099K. If that changed (maybe it has? I don't use airbnb any more) then that would be a change of their TOS.

Would you have no/less concern if they encrypted your SSN and used that for non-1099k related tasks?

The keyspace of SSNs is only 10^9. I don't think password hashing would help much.

Okay, so don't associate the SSN hash with the account. Come up with a mechanism to store anonymized SSNs to detect duplicate accounts.

Bloomfilters.

This isn't obviously true (nor obviously false) to me.

If airbnb added a unique index to the SSN (or a two-column index with SSN and locality) would you consider that a TOS violation?

The excuse is that's obviously where the majority of their revenue comes from. Why else would they fight so hard and risk being banned entirely?

agree. 80/20 rule in effect here. no different than the power sellers on Ebay who drive the lion's share of transactions.

So it's ok to break the law if your primary source of income is derived from illegal activity?

I'm speculating about why they did it. I think that AirBNB is horrific for housing constrained cities.

I used to be a big fan of airbnb when it got started in the spirit to support YC companies. Over the last couple of years all my experiences have been crap. I've lost about $1000 in non refundable fees because I've tried to cancel hosts who had almost unlivable places.

The review system is gamed and the whole things feels like a giant scam now. I never use it anymore and back to reliable hotel chains that guarantee some sort of quality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com