Is vacation rental site Airbnb illegal?

Molly Wood May 27, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Is vacation rental site Airbnb illegal?

Molly Wood May 27, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

If you’re spending this Memorial Day in somebody else’s house that you rented online, you might have used vacation website Airbnb — but not in state of New York…not for long at least. Last week a judge in New York ruled the company is violating laws against running illegal hotels.

Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, says online rental websites have challenged some old expectations and regulations of room and board.

Click on the audio player above to hear more. 

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.