Airbnb Fights Back Against San Francisco Ruling

San Francisco, CA.

Airbnb on Monday filed a motion in federal court to block San Francisco’s new law requiring hosts to register with the city. 

The city’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a measure two weeks ago, requiring Airbnb to pay $1,000 a day for every unregistered host on its site. If Airbnb doesn’t comply, it could face misdemeanor charges.

Airbnb’s suit claims the board’s ruling violates the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from holding websites accountable for the content that is published by their users.

“A fundamental purpose of Congress in passing the CDA was to shield website operators from compulsory obligations to screen user content upon pain of liability, and instead to provide them with the incentive to build innovative platforms while having the flexibility to experiment with and develop tools to address undesirable content without fear of legal retribution,” the motion said.

Airbnb also says providing the names and addresses of its users to the city violates the federal Stored Communications Act, which requires the government to obtain subpoenas or warrants before demanding user information from web sites.

Since 2015, San Francisco has required residents who rent out their homes on a short-term basis to register with the city. The “Airbnb Law” was enacted after affordable-housing advocates argued the service worsened the city’s housing crunch. But since then, only 20% of the 7,000 hosts have done so, and Airbnb has not removed the others, reported the New York Times. The city hopes the fines push Airbnb to better police its service.

The city is expected to respond to Airbnb’s motion by July 14.