Introduction

Summary

Online platforms focused on housing and accommodation services have increasingly encroached on spaces traditionally occupied by newspapers, travel agencies, hotels, and real estate brokers. For example, since Airbnb was founded in 2008 as a short-term accommodation marketplace, it has served over 40 million guests. At its peak, Craigslist, a virtual billboard space focused on classifi eds, had 50 million users and 30 million advertisements posted monthly. Roommates, specialized on matching individuals seeking shared places to live, boasts 50,000 visitors daily183, and Daft, centered on housing advertising and matching property seekers with homeowners, has 1,000 property searches every minute.

The sectors in which the above platforms operate have reportedly encountered issues related to racial or ethnic origin discrimination. In this respect, studies have demonstrated that urban areas are frequently divided not only by social classes but also by ethnic affi liation and national origins in the United States and in the European Union member states.

In Europe, the phenomenon of discrimination in housing transactions has resulted in a sort of ethnic spatial concentration that can be observed, for example, in Paris with Northern Africans, in Barcelona or Genoa with Moroccans and Pakistanis, or in Lisbon with Cape Verdeans. Discrimination is particularly sensitive in the rental market, in which race, ethnic origin, and nationality have imposed barriers to prospective tenants. In this regard, evidence of direct and indirect discrimination is documented in advertisements with statements such as “only national people” or “we do not lease to non-EU foreigners” in Spain; with requirements such as “only German speaking tenants with a regular income” in Berlin, “no colored need apply” in Ireland, or “no Roma” in Hungary; or over a hundred housing advertisements in newspapers and online media requiring “Austrians only,” “no foreigners,” or “native German-speakers only” in Austria. In France, for instance, cases involving landlords’ refusal to rent their property to non-national tenants, real estate agents who agree to comply with landlords’ discriminatory requirements, and rental offers specifying “no immigrants” have reached the courts. In particular, empirical studies have stressed that discrimination against people with Northern-African origins is high and is not only related to a supposed fi nancial vulnerability.