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The EU Would Very Much Like Airbnb To Know That the Rules Are Different in Europe (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the when-in-rome dept.

Airbnb is facing fresh regulatory pressure in Europe. But this time it's not about the short-term home rental platform's core business model -- it's about its terms and conditions, and the way the company presents pricing to consumers. From a report: On Monday, the European Commission and a number of EU consumer watchdogs accused Airbnb of breaking consumer law. If the company does not change the way it operates by the end of August, then it could face legal action. Specifically, the regulators said Airbnb must show people total prices up-front that include all charges and fees, and it must clearly tell customers whether a property is being offered by a private host or a professional. The American company's terms and conditions are illegal under EU law for a variety of reasons, the regulators added. For example, the company tells people in the EU that they cannot sue a host in cases of personal harm or other damages, and it claims it can unilaterally change its terms and conditions without giving customers a warning and the option of cancelling their contracts. These sorts of terms might fly in the U.S., but they're banned in Europe.

15 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. The EU may not be perfect.. by ddtmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But they've got this right. Glad to see them doing the right thing.

  2. It took this long? by ranton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These violations seem easy to identify, so why has it taken this long for the EU to act? I cannot tell from the story how long Airbnb has operated in the EU but they do mention other EU legal battles in the past so I'm guessing it has been many years. It's not like Airbnb is a small company that could have flown below their radar.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    1. Re:It took this long? by captbollocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Probably because they have lots of worse behaving US companies to contend with.

      Try one of the big travel booking companies that closed their European office and thought it was ok to just lock the doors without notice and not pay any staff any money at all nor even give the staff termination notices which meant the staff couldn't even claim social security.

    2. Re:It took this long? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The EU generally doesn't investigate stuff like this itself, it relies on member states' own consumer watchdogs to do it and then bring the case to them if it looks like an EU wide issue. Unfortunately that does mean that it can be a bit slow.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Good. by houghi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you do not like the laws, do not do business in the country. Can you imagine what would happen if AB InBev (A Belgian-Brazillian company, stationed about 100m from where I live) would start selling beer to 16 year olds because that is what they do in the home countries?
    No matter how stupid the law is, you must follow it and let the people decide what those laws are.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm a reasonable person, but am beginning to feel actively hostile towards the behaviour of many US companies, which is not a good sign. Coupled with Trump basically seeing how many countries he can insult, I suspect it's not long now before there is a consumer-led major boycott of all US goods and services.

  4. Governments should not allow abuse. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    AirBnB "tells people ... that they cannot sue a host in cases of personal harm or other damages, and it claims it can unilaterally change its terms and conditions without giving customers a warning and the option of cancelling their contracts."

    The U.S. government should not allow companies to manipulate, trick, and otherwise abuse customers.

    "... the [EU] regulators said Airbnb must show people total prices up-front that include all charges and fees, and it must clearly tell customers whether a property is being offered by a private host or a professional."

    It is shocking and extremely unpleasant to see how much dishonesty there is in U.S. advertising, and the extreme weakness of the U.S. government in preventing abuse.

  5. Resort fee by ruddk · · Score: 4, Informative

    We are not used to that.
    The whole:” the hotel is 299 pr night”
    But then there’s the:
    Resort fee, that’s another 50 pr night
    Oh the tourist tax, that’s another 10 pr night
    Ah you want to park your car? That’s another 25 or night.
    And of course that’s without taxes.

    And if you are using a hotel search engine, expect only the room price to be listed so you still have to do the calculations yourself.

    I have learned to research it when I plan my vacations so it’s not a problem, just annoying. :)

    --
    L'Idiot
    1. Re:Resort fee by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The rule in the EU is that the price advertised must be the price you pay for everything you would reasonably expect, including things like taxes and random fees. Parking might be included sometimes, it depends what it is you are booking (e.g. airline tickets won't include airport parking).

      They also can't get away with advertising offers where there are only one or two available and the rest cost much more, aka bait and switch. Comparison prices can show them and let you book them, but they can't do billboards or TV ads for them.

      The next step is to ban comparison sites and search engines from pressure selling to you. A lot of them claim to only have a couple of rooms left or only hold the flight for 1 minute.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. The US government doesn't care by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The U.S. government should not allow companies to manipulate, trick, and otherwise abuse customers.

    They shouldn't but they routinely do. The love to hide behind the fiction that many contracts are somehow not one sided and abusive because they are theoretically (though not really) optional.

    It is shocking and extremely unpleasant to see how much dishonesty there is in U.S. advertising, and the extreme weakness of the U.S. government in preventing abuse.

    Well, one party has been trying to do something about it, albeit meekly and in a pathetically limited way. The other party screams loudly that regulation is the devil no matter how sane the regulation might actually be and works tirelessly to permit companies to behave as badly as possible. End result is that we get screwed unless we are rich enough to fight the system.

  7. We're an Industrialized Banana Republic Now by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The third-world of the first-world. The USA has seen better days, and most of us know it.

    1. Re:We're an Industrialized Banana Republic Now by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Funny

      The third-world of the first-world. The USA has seen better days, and most of us know it.

      That is what happens when your country is run by banana republicans.

  8. Prices should include all fees and taxes by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have learned to research it when I plan my vacations so it’s not a problem, just annoying.

    It is annoying but it is also a problem. It permits de-facto false advertising of prices. The price should be the price. Taxes, fees, markups, etc should all be rolled in, whatever they happen to be. I don't really care what the tax is in your jurisdiction - I just care what the out the door price is and that is what I should be able to compare. If this makes businesses under the jurisdiction of some local government less competitive then they should petition to have the taxes reduced.

  9. Baby formula makers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps you missed this one:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html

    World Health Organizations wants to encourage breast feeding. US milk formula lobby opposed it. So USA tries to remove the wording encouraging breast feeding. Fails. US then threatens the bill sponsor, Equador, with military and trade sanctions to force them to stop sponsoring the bill! Equador withdraws the bill.

    Russia then sponsors the bill, USA shuts up, says nothing, lets the bill pass.

    US starts a trade war with Canada, not over the milk exports (there's no such thing as fresh milk exports, its too expensive to ship *chilled* milk long distances), but milk *protein* exports. The same group of companies, the same type of product.

    US has a trade *surplus* with Canada, and USA screws it over on things like pharmaceuticals import bans. Yet it starts a trade war over whey protein.

    So the current pecking order is Russia > US Milk Powder Companies > Canada > Nursing Mothers

  10. Re:ridiculous regulation by mrvan · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's an easy question :-)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    US is around 19T$, EU is 17T$ and relatively easy to do business in (strong rule of law, some convergence between countries). Next are China at 12T$, but if you find EU too much of a hassle don't even think about it, after that Japan (4T$) and India (2T$), also not easy markets.

    So, if you don't think US is a big enough market, EU is a pretty natural second. But to play ball here, you gotta play by the rules. Which is true across the pond as well, just check out the fines EU banks were hit by in response to (presumably) violating US laws or statutes.