Post by High Priestess on Jan 3, 2019 16:33:17 GMT
I was really glad to see this. A judge agreed that New York City went too far, and blocked their attempt to demand that Airbnb and other STR platforms hand over private information about hosts to the government:
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/nyregion/nyc-airbnb-rentals.html
As I mentioned before, demanding Airbnb hand over such information, amounts to illegal search and seizure:
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/nyregion/nyc-airbnb-rentals.html
A federal judge on Thursday blocked a recent New York City law intended to crack down on Airbnb and other online home-sharing sites that city officials have said have essentially turned residential apartments into illegal hotels and have aggravated the city’s housing shortage.
The law, which was enacted last summer and was to go into effect next month, would have required online home-sharing services like Airbnb to disclose to the city on a monthly basis detailed information about tens of thousands of listings and the identities and addresses of their hosts.
The law, which was enacted last summer and was to go into effect next month, would have required online home-sharing services like Airbnb to disclose to the city on a monthly basis detailed information about tens of thousands of listings and the identities and addresses of their hosts.
As I mentioned before, demanding Airbnb hand over such information, amounts to illegal search and seizure:
He wrote the companies (Airbnb and HomeAway) were likely to prevail on their claim that the ordinance violated the guarantee against illegal searches and seizures in the Fourth Amendment.
“The city has not cited any decision suggesting that the governmental appropriation of private business records on such a scale, unsupported by individualized suspicion or any tailored justification, qualifies as a reasonable search and seizure,” the judge wrote........The law required online rental services like Airbnb to disclose the addresses of its listings and the identities of its hosts to the city’s Office of Special Enforcement on a monthly basis. .... Companies that failed to share the data were subject to fines of $25,000 for each listing they did not disclose...City officials hoped the new disclosure requirements would make it much easier for the city to enforce the state law and would lead to many of the 50,000 units rented through Airbnb in the city coming off the market..... After similar rules went into effect in San Francisco, listings fell by half.
“The city has not cited any decision suggesting that the governmental appropriation of private business records on such a scale, unsupported by individualized suspicion or any tailored justification, qualifies as a reasonable search and seizure,” the judge wrote........The law required online rental services like Airbnb to disclose the addresses of its listings and the identities of its hosts to the city’s Office of Special Enforcement on a monthly basis. .... Companies that failed to share the data were subject to fines of $25,000 for each listing they did not disclose...City officials hoped the new disclosure requirements would make it much easier for the city to enforce the state law and would lead to many of the 50,000 units rented through Airbnb in the city coming off the market..... After similar rules went into effect in San Francisco, listings fell by half.