Airbnb allowing host to place cameras in the room where I would be sleeping | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb allowing host to place cameras in the room where I would be sleeping

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113 pointsmoonka28 comments

I think the worst part of this is that companies can (often times intentionally) do extremely scummy and even illegal stuff with the knowledge that if they're caught, the worst they'll have to do is pay back what they should have in the first place. AirBNB probably makes thousands off of refusing to refund in cases where they were supposed to. And the one time that they're forced to, they don't have to pay a fine or damages.

In Denmark we have a government agency called The National Consumer Agency. Citizens can complain here if a company treats them unfairly, and they will take the fight on your behalf. Just knowing that is an option or threatening with reporting a vendor acting in bad faith is often enough.

NYC will hopefully start banning short term rentals starting next month:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/08/25/new-yo...

Oh wow this is fantastic news for New Yorkers. I hope this gets picked up by more states & countries.

New Yorkers don't travel and enjoy airbnbs?

We can and do.

But I also want Airbnb to be regulated and return to what it was originally - a place that people can rent out their own home for a few weeks while they are on vacation, and not illegal hotels.

Just go to a hotel. Airbnb isn’t cheaper and it’s no longer a unique experience either

Agreed. I gave up on AirBnb years ago and just got back into regular loyalty programs of regular hotels.

This is the correct answer. Unless you have 6 kids or a beach/ski situation, Airbnb is dumb.

The main advantages that these “we don’t provide a service, we provide an app to connect you to a service” companies have is that they can dodge local regulations and the don’t take the full reputation damage when they have a bad host.

There’s no way they can compete with hotel chains in terms of scale and having sorted out best practices.

Hotels are a limited option. They are perfect for a single couple, or with one or two kids.

For a single person they tend to be a bit expensive since you usually pay the price for two, and hostels, which can accommodate single travelers are not common in the US. But there are plenty of shared AirBnBs.

If, on the opposite you are traveling in a larger group (4+ adults), hotel options are again limited. You often need to split the group into distinct rooms, which is not the most friendly.

For business travel, hotels all the way, but for vacation, AirBnB often had the best options for my situation (single, traveling alone or with a group of friends) in several countries including the US.

Sure, ignoring total cost and just going by the rates you pay up front.

What are you going to do when there's a dispute, a crime, or a disaster?

Hotels are insured and their employees are bonded for lots of stuff. Hotels are highly regulated for a lot of reasons that happened in the past and nobody remembers, because they don't happen anymore, but they're all being recapitulated with AirBnB supposedly "disrupting" the industry.

Every time I've stayed in a hotel, even long before I was aware that regulation was a thing or what it regulated, I was grateful for the rigorous structures that were set in place and the guidelines that needed to be followed by our hosts so that we could have a pleasant and predictable stay.

This is such an annoying blanket statement. Yes, hotels are the best option in larger cities for short term stays, but as soon as you plan to stay for a few weeks or months and need a kitchen, and want to live relatively close to a local life, airbnb is the best route with the most options.

Meeeh, I've stayed in quite a few very unique AirBNB locations. I typically purposefully go for places out of the way and with very few amenities. My favorite rental was an extremely small cabin with no running water in the middle of nowhere for something like 60$ a day. Definitely hit or miss though but it's part of the fun, once I stayed at a cabin near a swamp and the frogs kept me up for quite a while. Maybe it's easy to find places like this for some people but for me this is the reason I still use AirBNB.

> "And all my requests for discovery were denied and the hearing happened the next day. I was NOT prepared to move forward with basically nothing..."

> "We had already played recordings of me crying with customer service (embarrassing) and in order to "prove" that I was impacted by this I had to submit anxiety medications my doctor had prescribed me that I was then cross-examined on (double embarrassing)."

> They claimed they had no record of a meeting I know occurred because my friend was there but I wasn't willing to sell out my friend to "prove" it (the judge wanted to see the email I had - wasn't going to do that.)

> the hearing itself got super bogged down into the weeds of whether I had PROOF that there was a camera (reminder, I didn't because the first customer service rep told me that the hosts' acknowledgment that there was one wasn't enough).

Let's just all agree to shut down AirBnB shall we?

They provide a service that is hard to come by: hosting anywhere.

Innkeeping is not exactly new.

Their innovations so far seem to be mostly around liability reduction and zoning law evasion. They're like a tobacco company at this stage, let's admit it.

It's still crazy to me that forced arbitration is a thing. It should not be possible to sign away legal rights like that.

It is really a reflection of how broken the civil court process is in the US.

It seems to be absolutely everywhere now.

Currently spending the weekend packing for my first move in 5-6 years and, no exaggeration, every single new contract (lease, utilities, garbage, etc) had a forced arbitration clause.

When did these things become universally forced? I distinctly recall arbitration clauses being Big Corp Only things not too long ago - and in many cases, they allowed you to opt-out. Now it’s just a standard part of every boilerplate contract that you have to sign away your rights.

Tell your congressman to repeal the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925.

There are a series of awful supreme court decisions (often written by Scalia though not only) that eviscerated the right to actually use the court system.

- Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1 (1984) arb applies in state courts in addition to federal

- Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp. 500 U.S. 20 (1991)

- Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto, 517 U.S. 681 (1996)

- Green TreeFinancial Corp.-Ala. .v Randolph, 531 US 79 (2000)

- Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 US 395 (1967)

- Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc. v. Cardegna, 546 US 440 (2006)

- Rent-A-Center West v. Jackson, 561 US 63 (2010) arbitrator will determine the enforceability of the agreement

- Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., 552 US 576 (2008) arb award can't be modified

- Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 US 20 (1991) arb in discrimination claim

- AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011)A class action waivers

- American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, 570 US 228 (2013)

There have been some proposals to fix this - a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, none have passed yet.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1374

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/259...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/537

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1423

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/610

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/963

Some other useful sources if you care about the details:

1. Glover, J. M. (2022). Mass Arbitration. Stanford Law Review, 74. https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2...

2. Katherine V.W. Stone & Alexander J.S. Colvin. (2015). The arbitration epidemic: Mandatory arbitration deprives workers and consumers of their rights (Briefing Paper 414). Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/

Before airbnb, the idea was crazy that you’d let strangers into your home. It’s still kind of crazy because one stranger could damage and ruin the experience for everybody.

Similarly one host could ruin it for everybody.

The lesson from Airbnb over and over again is that they choose profits over a consistent guest experience.

Airbnb support is like Google, they really do leave you in the cold if you don’t know an insider.

Uber/lyft have a faaaaar faaaar more consistent experience. It’s not perfect but much better than taxis.

AirBnb has NOT been better than hotels. Pictures and actual place could be off, many fees tacked on, easily lose thousands if you don’t like the place. Customer support will acknowledge the problem but don’t do much to fix it.

I can see many issues with airbnb saying it's okay to have a camera pointing at bed but I'm trying to connect it with sex trafficking. From the keynote that she linked it's not clear. Obviously recording would be blackmail material but is the idea that airbnb owner would be a trafficker or conspire with traffickers against customer?

Note that the real issue is not lack of refund but deep implications of having cameras like that. Victims of blackmail would not be asking for refund...

OP was just going off a tangent about why cameras are bad, not saying that the AirBnB would use the cameras the blackmail a prostitute/ sex slave.

> Now, am I trying to say that just by sleeping in a room with a camera I would be pulled into some sort of underground human trafficking ring? No.

it is trivial to obstruct a camera, hidden cameras are a slam dunk for voyeurism [sex offense] charges.

Play with snakes get bitten.

I believe by this time people should be aware AirBnb is a deeply unethical company whose business is built around something that has massive social costs.

One the one hand I am glad to see it receiving negative attention.

On the other hand, I feel the people complaining are also getting what they deserve.

Not sure when the cutoff is in your opinion, but FWIW they’d booked the place in 2022. AirBNB just apparently managed to yank the victim around for a year.

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