Skift Take
Airbnb and New York City have had many twists and turns in their dealings over the last decade, and here's a list of the major events in their often rocky relationship.
Airbnb and New York City have often had a tough relationship, one marked by lawsuits and other disputes. Airbnb has argued that New York City's regulations have hurt its ability to do business, which the company believes will become more challenging when the city starts enforcing its host registration law regarding short-term rentals on September 5.
The back and forth goes back at least 10 years as seen in the timeline below. We used Ask Skift, our AI tool that relies on our own past reporting, and added additional reporting as well.
October 2013: New York State Attorney General Subpoenas Airbnb User RecordsNew York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed user records from Airbnb as part of an investigation into hosts that violate the state’s short-term rental laws. Airbnb issued a statement saying it would not cooperate with the subpoena.
David Hantman, Airbnb’s head of public policy, argued on the company's blog that "the vast majority of these hosts are everyday New Yorkers who occasionally share the home in which they live." Skift reported that Airbnb contested that most rentals on the platform aren't with those hosts but with those who manage properties for others or from landlords that illegally taken their units off the market.
February 2014: Two-Thirds of Airbnb's New York City Listings Are IllegalAirbnb told Schneiderman that compiling data about its hosts and occupancy levels was too burdensome. So Skift turned to data extraction and monitoring firm Connotate to gather detailed information about hosts in New York City.
Connotate's research found that roughly two-thirds of Airbnb's New York City listings were breaking the law. Skift had reported the previous year that at least half of those listings were i