I'm actually surprised with such effort the rate of exposure of hosts was only 40%.
Even still, this seems pretty sensationalist to me. I find it hard to believe an organized service to "scam" Airbnb would be valuable to a host to save 3-5% at the cost of losing the legitimacy of being a part of the Airbnb platform. Furthermore, such a service would at least have the hurdle of being in violation of the ToS of using the site https://www.airbnb.com/terms#sec14 .
Also, all of the numbers in the article assume the Wisconsin data set would be representative. The article states less population dense areas would be more vulnerable to this algorithm. So, why does it extrapolate based on only 84 homes in a more "vulnerable" area? The article ignores the fact that Airbnb operates in countries that do not have the same laws as the US. So, not even all 3 million homes are vulnerable to this method. This article is fishing for a result that will make a good headline.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 12.8 ms ] threadEven still, this seems pretty sensationalist to me. I find it hard to believe an organized service to "scam" Airbnb would be valuable to a host to save 3-5% at the cost of losing the legitimacy of being a part of the Airbnb platform. Furthermore, such a service would at least have the hurdle of being in violation of the ToS of using the site https://www.airbnb.com/terms#sec14 .
Also, all of the numbers in the article assume the Wisconsin data set would be representative. The article states less population dense areas would be more vulnerable to this algorithm. So, why does it extrapolate based on only 84 homes in a more "vulnerable" area? The article ignores the fact that Airbnb operates in countries that do not have the same laws as the US. So, not even all 3 million homes are vulnerable to this method. This article is fishing for a result that will make a good headline.