“Airbnb has been in hot water with hosts since the coronavirus crisis began, since the company told hosts to refund guests who needed to cancel their trips due to the pandemic,” reports Travel + Leisure magazine. “According to USA Today, the company spent $250 million in March to try to reimburse hosts for their cancellations plus a $17 million fund for…
Tag: airbnb
Nearly 70,000 Tech Startup Employees Have Lost Their Jobs Since March
Technology startups have been laying off tens of thousands of workers to cope with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, potentially blunting a key innovation pipeline for the enterprise information-technology market, according to industry analysts. From a report: “Startups are a great source of innovation in the IT industry, but are now especially cash constrained,” said Max Azaham, a senior…
Gizmodo Reports Airbnb ‘Agrees to Rat Out Its Hosts Like NYC Wants It To’
In New York City, Airbnb “has agreed to hand over personal data about its hosts — like their phone numbers and email addresses, along with a full list of every home they’re putting on the platform — in order to help city authorities track down those that flout the city’s regulations,” reports Gizmodo. The city is Airbnb’s largest market in the…
AI Isn’t Magical and Won’t Help You Reopen Your Business
The coronavirus is helping to erode the hype around artificial intelligence; data scientists get the axe and some ‘old-fashioned’ solutions work better. From a report: When SharpestMinds, a startup that sells mentoring services to data scientists, surveyed its alumni in April and again in May, it found that 6% of respondents had been affected by furloughs, pay cuts or layoffs. That’s…
The Results Are In for the Sharing Economy. They Are Ugly.
The coronavirus pandemic has gutted the so-called sharing economy. Its most valuable companies, which started the year by promising that they would soon become profitable, now say consumer demand has all but vanished. It is not likely to return anytime soon. From a report: In earnings reports this week, Uber and Lyft disclosed the depth of the financial damage. The companies…
Airbnb Is Laying Off a Quarter of Its Workforce
Airbnb announced that it is laying off around a quarter of its workforce, citing revenue declines and a need to curtail costs. TechCrunch reports: In the note, written by Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky, the company said that 1,900 employees will be laid off, or 25.3% of its 7,500 workers. The layoffs will impact a number of internal product groups,…
IBM Takes Airbnb To Court Over Historic Patents
IBM is taking Airbnb to court over what it claims is the illegal use of four patents — the latest in a string of suits against online companies involving historic and arguably broad innovations — in a move that threatens to cast a shadow over the short-term rental company’s road to a proposed IPO. From a report: The computing giant has…
Forbes Criticizes Airbnb ‘Surveillance Bugs To Make Sure Guests Behave’
“So this is creepy,” writes a Forbes cybersecurity reporter, saying Airbnb “has put aside the stories of hosts secretly spying on guests” to promote a new line of devices Forbes calls “surveillance bugs to make sure guests behave.” Vice reports:
As part of its “party prevention” campaign, the home-sharing service is offering discounts on devices designed to alert hosts when there’s an…
Almost Every Website You Visit Records Exactly How Your Mouse Moves
Medium’s technology blog OneZero reports that many websites today use a service that collects all of your mouse movements, enabling “replays” of every move. “What surprised me was that the software even recorded when I shook my mouse around while deciding what to click on. It felt like observing digital body language.” Session replay services have been around for over a…
Anatomy of a Rental Phishing Scam
Jeffrey Ladish writes: I was recently the (unsuccessful) target of a very well-crafted phishing scam. As part of a housing search a few weeks ago, I was trawling craigslist and zillow for rental opportunities in the SF bay area. I reached out to a beautiful looking rental place to inquire about a tour. Despite my experience as a security professional, I…