Why was the title of this post changed? It used to have the name "airbnb" in it earlier this morning, around 400 votes.
That sounds like an excellent matter to leave in the hands of the users who vote for/against stories.
It's just too tempting to not reflexively upvote a juicy title.
Sure, it's easy to think "look, YC changed the title because it gave a bad light to a YC company!" and that might be part of it.
But the truth is that this story only got the spotlight here because it had AirBnB in the submission title, but the events it describes are not really specific to AirBnB. It could have happened through many other rental services.
Also it's typically frowned upon changing the title of a post for the submission.
That doesn't make the original title in any way inaccurate. Is this like saying, oh my Google apps account was compromised and all my business data was leaked - but really its unfair to post a story "My Google account was hacked", it could have happened to any online service.
A poor excuse for deflecting what is obviously a problem with their service. Is YC simply going to moderate posts about their own startups at will? Especially when everything is, fact for fact, true?
I had a HN account for a few months, my posts were getting generally positive responses. Then I made a comment containing criticism of the YC startup the article was about. I think it was fair criticism, I just gave my reasons I couldn't trust their service enough to use it. It was my highest-rated comment ever, and sparked a fair bit of discussion so I think the community tended to at least agree that I had a point. The next day HN got a lot slower and every new comment I made stayed at 1 point permanently and were never replied to. It seemed funny, I was used to getting at least a few points on my quickest made comments. When I logged out everything was fast again and my new comments were nowhere to be seen. I had been shaddowbanned and slowbanned.
So your question should not be "Is YC simply going to...". They already do that.
I do have to disagree on the likelihood that this particular scenario would've happened to the host through other rental agencies. For her explanation as to why, see paragraph 14 overall - or paragraph 4 under the heading "This was my home" - in her post. She addresses Craigslist; to add to that, I know that VRBO and HomeAway (the two major entire-unit vacation rental sites) accept payment for the host's listing only but absolutely everything else is left between the two parties, including verifications, contracts (if any), and payment method. The key relevant difference between those sites and Airbnb is that Airbnb blocks both host and guest from exchanging outside contact and identity information until a reservation is completed through their system. The reason for that is obvious, as Airbnb is a different business model, and needs to ensure that they receive their percentage for leads they provide. But one result of that policy is that taking independent security measures are impossible until both host and guest are already obligated and on the hook (hosts are penalized by appearing lower in the listings if they cancel a confirmed reservation from their end). The victim admits her naivete in thinking that because Airbnb demands to handle several aspects of the booking, that there are other levels of safety and verification implicit that in fact do not exist.
So yes, hosts can get ripped off using other listing services as well. But it is also made readily apparent that one should protect themselves on those sites, and users aren't actively blocked from gathering information to do so.