AirBnB, the elephant in the room

I've been in the Vacation Rental biz for 20 years, starting with the advent of the commercial internet and well before the likes of Airbnb and Homeaway (VRBO, vacationrentals.com, etc) essentially took over our industry. Airbnb, Homeaway, and Tripadvisor/Flipkey all sidestep their responsibility and liability by relying on the same type of small print form that no one ever reads and you just have to hit AGREE to in order to list with them. When issues arise due to the wide open black markets they have created and pushed into neighborhoods they tend to do what Airbnb just did. Blow it off in hopes it will go away. If it doesn't go away, they then get into damage control which never has anything to do with legalizing and cleaning up their marketplaces as might be expected by good industry partners. Instead they tend to obfuscate the issue by blaming other entities like the municipalities. For instance, a guest was just raped by an Airbnb host in Madrid. When he texted his mom in the US for help from a locked bedroom prior to the actual rape, she then called Airbnb and they refused to help in any way. They would not provide her with the address of the property and would not initiate any help or investigation. Not their problem. In the interim, the guest was raped. [link text][1] They did the same thing, denying any responsibility, years ago when a host's apartment in NYC was totally destroyed by Airbnb renters. They blew off the host until it became big bad news for them and then proudly announced an insurance guarantee for hosts. Professionals would figure out things like that ahead of time. Outfits like AirheadBnB don't bother unless it looks like it will effect their billions. They're too busy counting their money. The sharing economy appears to be just a scam enabling illegal, unlicensed businesses like taxis and vacation rentals to the huge profit gains of the marketplaces that host these "economies" like Uber and Airbnb. Should I be allowed to sell take out pizzas out of my unlicensed and un-inspected home kitchen just because an internet code could be written to enable it? I don't think so. My guess is that those who freak out about Big Gov't and licensing and health and safety regulations will be the first to look to the authorities when they or someone they know are poisoned, burned to death, or raped due to a black market business unwittingly accessed through these websites. In my opinion, ALL those marketplaces should be required to grow up and actually verify the legality of the businesses they profit from. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/your-money/airb…
— August 17, 2015 5:15 p.m.