Conclusion of Title I

Summary

Platforms focused on the housing and accommodation sectors bring great opportunities to connect property owners and individuals seeking properties for rental and sale. Moreover, they have enhanced the possibility for individuals to effi ciently allocate empty places by renting them through short-term arrangements. These positive aspects combine with the fact that housing and accommodation platforms intermediate relationships in a market that has long been marked by instances of discrimination.

My aim in this title was to demonstrate how these platforms challenge the principle of equality by scaling the number of offers visibly available to the public, by scaling the number of individuals renting a fraction of their properties, and by their design, that either enhances protected markers, such as gender and ethnic origin, or implements matching tools to exclude protected classes from housing offers.

Concerning the publication of discriminatory advertising, I argue that, on the one hand, the full immunity provided by the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to Internet Service Providers limits the possibilities victims of discrimination have to be redressed in the United States. On the other hand, in Europe, the more balanced approach concerning the liability of online intermediaries over third-party illegal content provides more safeguards to take the illegal content down. However, both sets of liabilities cannot avoid the aspect of the scale that illegal content has online.

Moreover, antidiscrimination laws provide limited possibilities to address cases in which hosts, renting a fraction of their properties, refuse to accept guests through online platforms either in countries of the European Union or in the United States. While in the EU, the right for respect for private life is more limited and only sex discrimination is exempt in cases of shared spaces, in the United States the constitutional right of freedom of association allows further differentiations in cases in which the host owns a single-family property or a multifamily property of four units or less.

Finally, rules of vicarious liability do not apply to most online platforms because the principles of subordination and agency do not guide the relationship that most online platforms have with their users.