Airbnb has implemented a worldwide ban on indoor security cameras in rental properties.They announced this on Monday.
Before, Airbnb allowed hosts to have security cameras inside their homes in shared areas as long as they told guests about them on the listing page and put the cameras where guests could see them. Security cameras used inside buildings were not allowed in places where people sleep and bathrooms.
The new rules say that indoor security cameras are not allowed in any listing anymore, no matter where they are or why they were put there.
“We wanted to make new, easy-to-understand rules to give our community a better idea of what to expect on Airbnb,” said Juniper Downs, who is in charge of community policy and partnerships at Airbnb. She said this in a blog post on Monday.
Downs said that they made a new rule after talking to guests, hosts, and privacy experts.
The company said most Airbnb listings don’t have security cameras. This means only a few hosts will be affected by the new policy.
People who have security cameras inside their homes need to take them out by April 30. After this date, if a host breaks the new rules, they could be in trouble like getting their listing removed or their account taken down from the platform.
You can still have doorbell cameras and other outdoor security cameras at Airbnb. Hosts have to tell their guests if they have outdoor cameras and where they are before the guests book their stay.
Many people who rent Airbnb homes get annoyed by the security cameras inside the houses. The update on Monday comes about a week after “Saturday Night Live” made jokes about cameras in an Airbnb’s toilet.
Tag: Airbnb
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Airbnb forbids the use of interior security cameras
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Airbnb to pay $835m to Italy govt in tax invasion inquiry
An Italian judge has ruled for the seizure of €779.5 million ($835.5 million; £676.8 million) from Airbnb, a major player in short-term rentals, on the grounds of alleged tax evasion.
Prosecutors have asserted that the company did not collect a tax on approximately €3.7 billion in rental income, which landlords in Italy are obligated to pay at a rate of 21%.
Airbnb told the BBC that it was “surprised and disappointed at the action announced by the Italian public prosecutor”.
Christopher Nutly, a spokesperson for Airbnb, stated that the company’s European headquarters had been engaged in discussions with the Italian tax agency to address the issue since June.
Mr Nutly added “We are confident that we have acted in full compliance with the law and intend to exercise our rights with respect to this issue.”
According to a statement from Milan Tribunal prosecutors, three individuals who held managerial positions at Airbnb between 2017 and 2021 are currently under investigation.
In 2022, Airbnb challenged an Italian law that mandated short-term rental providers, including the company, to withhold 21% of rental income from landlords and remit it to tax authorities.
Airbnb argued that Italy’s taxation requirements were in conflict with the European Union’s principle of allowing the free provision of services across the 27-country bloc. However, the European Union’s highest court ultimately ruled in favor of Italy’s requirements.
In recent years, Italian authorities have intensified their scrutiny of the tax practices of major companies like Airbnb, which has been operating in the country since 2008. Reports suggest that Italian prosecutors have initiated tax-related investigations into Netflix and Meta.
Just last month, Italian politicians announced plans to crack down on landlords who do not pay taxes on short-term rentals facilitated by platforms such as Airbnb. The co-ruling Forza Italia party revealed intentions to introduce a national identification code for short-term rentals in the country.
“That code will bring out the revenue of those who rent flats without declaring them,” Forza Italia leader and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters.
Politicians estimate that the move could boost Italy’s fiscal revenue by €1bn.
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Pandemic a major blow for Airbnb
At the foot of the Acropolis hill, in the touristic Koukaki district, the coronavirus lockdown has silenced the sound of Airbnb customers’ wheeled luggage.
The tourist industry in Athens, as in many other European capitals, has ground to a halt, with planes grounded and restaurants, museums and archaeological monuments all closed.
This has left a huge hole in the Greek economy which had been recovering from a decade of crisis.
Owners of small apartments in Koukaki, who had been renting them on the Airbnb platform in order to provide income during the financial crisis, are once again struggling.
“The reservations stopped abruptly,” laments Romina Tsitou, an Airbnb host since 2014.
“I hope I won’t have to put them for longterm rental, but I may have to if this situation drags on,” she adds. For the time being her two Airbnb apartments accommodate medical staff.
Stefania Dimitroula has already put her apartment up for long-term rental.
“Since the beginning of the summer of 2018, it was fully booked via Airbnb, almost exclusively by foreign tourists,” the 32-year-old woman said, but “100 percent of the reservations for April, May and June have been cancelled”.
Being unemployed, she had no other choice.
“I was counting on the earnings of this apartment, around 1,000 euros per month, to compensate for the loss of my job,” she explained, expressing pessimism about the summer season, which the Greek government is hoping to jumpstart on July 1.
Long-term rentals are becoming “a major trend”, according to Patrick Tkatschenko, a real estate agent in Athens.
“Airbnb is suffering a huge blow,” he told AFP.
Airbnb slashes staff but will adapt
The “hard hit” American home-sharing platform announced on Tuesday that it will slash a quarter of its work force – some 1,900 people all around the world.
“We are collectively living through the most harrowing crisis of our lifetime,” Airbnb co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky said in a blog post.
This year the San Francisco-based company’s revenue will be “less than the half” of the 2019 figure, and Chesky admits he doesn’t know when the tourists will return.
Still there are many who believe that holiday apartments, rather than hotels, have a future, as safe havens away from the crowds.
Enrique Alcantara, president of Apartur, the holiday apartment owners’ federation in Barcelona, foresees a 85 percent drop in sales revenue for 2020.
He predicts though that holiday apartments “are going to adapt more easily to the new times that lie ahead, to the new needs of the tourists, mainly as far as security is concerned”.
In Athens too, despite the staggering drop in holiday reservations, there remains a glimmer of hope.
“Tourists will benefit from private apartments in order to feel more secure in comparison with hotels where they will have to interact with more people,” Stratos Paradias, president of the Greek Federation of Property Owners and of the International Union of Property Owners, told AFP.
He also thinks apartments that manage to stay in the short-term rental market will bounce back “faster than elsewhere” because “Greece is considered one of the safe countries thanks to the way it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic”.
Holding fast to short-term rentals
In Barcelona, Sybille Campagne’s holiday letting calendar is empty.
“For July-August, all reservations were cancelled,” the 43-year-old French woman explains.
Nevertheless she isn’t considering taking her apartment off the Airbnb platform because it accounts for 80 percent of all her reservations.
Juan Quilis, a 35-year-old telecom technician who owns an apartment in Seville, is also sticking with short-term rentals for the time being.
“I’m not too worried for now, because I have a savings cushion but if I see that things don’t come around, I will put my apartment in long term rental. As a last resort.”
In France, Airbnb expects to see its reservations come back swiftly thanks to its local clientele, with the French particularly fond of staycations.
Aurelien Perol, Airbnb director of communication in France, expects last-minute reservations to rise as lockdowns are lifted.
Meanwhile in Amsterdam, holiday rentals spiked in mid- April and have plummeted since, according to the local newspaper Het Parool.
‘Purge is necessary’
A study conducted by Spitogatos, the most popular online property ads network in Greece, found a clear rise in apartments listed for long-term rentals in mid-April, accounting for 30 percent of the market in central Athens.
Spitogatos CEO Dimitris Melachroinos thinks the long-term rental sector will keep rising as it will be seen as “a safer option”.
This new turn in the real estate market will also lead to much-needed regulation of the sector.
“The short-term rentals practice grew out of control in Athens in recent years. The purge provoked by the COVID-19 crisis is necessary,” Paradias says.
In Koukaki, the number of short-time rentals skyrocketed between 2017-2019, from 360 to 1,150, according to AIRDNA, which analyses rental platforms like Airbnb. As a result, property prices have nearly doubled causing problems for local apartment seekers.
Source:Â france24.com