Short-Term Home Rental Company, Airbnb, began sharing its data to the people in New York City about the different ways that homeowners can open their homes to guests in the five boroughs.
Airbnb's data contains information on the statistics such as host earnings, listing types, and the percentage on how people often rent out their homes and other properties. It is the first time that the company voluntarily shared the city data on a wide scale with information that reveals on their host's online platform usage.
The data sharing decision is in connection to the public pledge that the company made last month about their plan to build an open and transparent community.
"Our hope is that people will understand 99 percent of people on Airbnb in New York City are using it as an economic lifeline," Airbnb head of global policy and public affairs, Chris Lehane said.
According to the New York Times, the action made by the company is a part of their effort to show to the local and the national regulators that Airbnb platform is not a medium that illegal hotel operators can use to skirt local housing laws and hotel restrictions to rent properties to travelers regularly.
The New York Attorney General's office released a statement in accordance to Airbnb's data last year about the three-quarters Airbnb illegal rentals in the city. It was found out that the short-term home rental company allows a less than 30 days rental which is considered illegal by the state law.
As a compromise to the issue, the company decided to release the city data of the 60,000 listings in all five boroughs in the city in the presence of the government officials.
Airbnb also said they are planning to expand their data sharing efforts outside the city. The company is hoping that by sharing the data to the entire town, they would convince regulators to draft a more detailed and comprehensive legislation for short-term rental companies.
"Today is really the first example of us walking the walk. It's important for us now, especially in New York, to start having this conversation," Lehane said.