[…] Beginning on Jan. 31, hosts will only see the initials of guests’ first names until they confirm a booking request, Airbnb announced in a December news announcement spotted by the Verge. After a host confirms the booking, the guest’s full name will appear. The change to how names are displaced will be in place for at least two years.
“While we have made progress, we have much more to do and continue working with our Hosts and guests, and with civil rights leaders to make our community more inclusive,” Airbnb said.
In its announcement, the company said the update is consistent with the voluntary settlement agreement it reached with individuals in Oregon in 2019 “who raised concerns regarding the way guests’ names are displayed when they seek to book a listing.”
According to the Oregonian, in 2017 Portland resident Patricia Harrington filed a lawsuit against Airbnb. She claimed that because Airbnb requires guests to disclose their full name and include a photo, which hosts’ review before they accept a booking, the company was allowing hosts to discriminate against Black guests. This constituted a violation of Oregon’s public accommodation laws, she alleged.
Airbnb settled the lawsuit, which included two more Black women in Oregon, in 2019. By that time, Harrington had died.
The lawsuit’s claims weren’t wrong. Black guests have been sounding the alarm about discrimination on the platform for years and even created a hashtag: #AirbnbWhileBlack. In 2016, a Harvard Business School study even found that requests from guests with African American names were roughly 16% less likely to be accepted by hosts than identical guests with distinctively white names.
[…]
“Given that the impact of this change is unknown, the implementation will be limited,” Airbnb spokesperson Liz DeBold Fusco said in an email. “We will evaluate the impact of this change to understand if there are learnings from this work that can inform future efforts to fight bias.”
[…]
Source: Airbnb Hides Guest First Names in Oregon to Stop Discrimination
Robin Edgar
Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft