Against discrimination, Airbnb begins to hide the names of guests

Airbnb is making new changes to the booking process, but only in Oregon for now.

Airbnb has just announced a change to the booking process, specifically to how profiles are displayed. This change currently only applies to the State of Oregon, USA. It’s about hiding the names of the guests from the host. This one will be able to see them only after the reservation is accepted to fight discrimination. This change will become fully effective on January 31, 2022.

Airbnb makes new changes to the booking process

So the goal is to combat racial discrimination among hosts, according to the company, by preventing them from guessing the origin of a particular guest from their simple name. A 2016 study found that Airbnb guests with “black”names were 16% less likely to receive a booking request compared to guests whose names “sound white”.

The announcement follows an out-of-court settlement Airbnb reached in 2019 following a complaint from three Portland women. The all-black plaintiffs accused the platform of allowing hosts to discriminate against black users by forcing guests to post their name and photo on their profile.

Only in Oregon yet

Following this agreement with applicants, Airbnb announced that it would “update the way names are displayed on host profiles during the booking process.”

Airbnb has spoken extensively in the past about the importance of racial justice to them. The platform is now asking users to agree to its Airbnb community commitment to not discriminate against anyone. In the summer of 2020, the company also launched Project Lighthouse, an initiative to explore discrimination on its platform. Prior to this program, the company stated that it did not have the ability to measure “megatrends and other discrimination-related grounds”at the time of booking.

Airbnb guests are not required to provide a profile picture (although hosts may require them to reserve their listing). Since 2018, the platform has also hidden guest photos until bookings are confirmed. This change, also aimed at combating discrimination, proved to be somewhat controversial among users, as some feared that it would put marginal guests in dangerous situations that they could have avoided. “I would rather have my booking rejected than be beaten or killed when I get there,” one user explained.

If the company is truly committed to such a strategy to reduce discrimination, why limit it to Oregon? Liz DeBold Fusco, a spokeswoman, did not explicitly say if the feature will be expanded in the near future. According to the official announcement, it read: “As part of our current projects, we will take into account any results of this change and use them to inform our future anti-discrimination efforts.”The company added that it plans to “continue to work with hosts and guests, as well as civil rights leaders, to make [its] community more inclusive.”