If you’ve been renting your apartment out to, say, local filmmakers, you can breathe easy.
AirBNB has announced, in a letter to hosts, that the New York Supreme Court has rejected Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s request for a subpoena that would’ve outed the names and addresses of its users.
“The court agreed with what we have been saying for months — that the subpoena was too broad,” writes David Hantman, the apartment rental site’s Head of Global Public Policy.
“This isn’t over, and we suspect that the Attorney General may even issue another subpoena,” Hantman writes, “but our hope is that we can continue working with the Attorney General’s office to try to address his legitimate concerns about large property groups abusing our platform without the need to turn over vast swaths of data on New Yorkers just trying to make ends meet.”
Hantman’s suspicion would seem to be correct: a spokesperson for AG said, “The judge rejected all of AirBnb’s arguments except for a narrow technical issue, and we will reissue the subpoena to address it.” The judge’s verdict, posted on Daily Politics, notes that AirBNB “has failed to demonstrate that the subpoena is unduly burdensome” and there are indications that “there are Hosts regularly using their apartments to provide lodging to guests who may not be complying with the state and local tax registration and/or collection requirements.”