SANTA ANA, Calif., July 29 (UPI) — Online rental site Airbnb has sued the city of Anaheim over a law that would fine the company and its competitors for listing homes or apartments that violate the city’s rental regulations…

BOSTON (AP) — Airbnb is urging lawmakers in Massachusetts to support a measure that would require it and other online lodging services to pay the same taxes as traditional hotels and motels…

The Norwegian Renters’ Association, LBF, has declarded that renting out apartments on Airbnb ought to be regulated. “We think that restrictions on commercial rentals on Airbnb should be established,” Lars Aasen, head of LBF, tells NTB…

Airbnb and Uber pitched the “sharing economy” as a key antidote to wage stagnation and inequality at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) with a campaign that critics say reflects the technology corporations’ pattern of deploying questionable data in its political battles. Coinciding with its DNC panel discussion on Tuesday, the popular home-sharing startup also released results of a survey it commissioned, which claimed that 74% of millennials have a “favorable” impression of the sharing economy and that 81% “want Airbnb to be legal”. But in the same way that this week’s survey appeared to ask self-serving questions, the company-produced research has faced accusations of flawed methodology from academics and advocates….

For Airbnb, the panel was just one part of a broader push at the DNC, the goal of which is to win over more Democratic hearts and minds. And the company needs all the Democratic Party help it can get as its fight against anti-Airbnb lawmakers nationwide continues to intensify. Additionally, the company is in the middle of a separate scandal over racial discrimination on its platform. For the most part, that issue went undiscussed….

Airbnb is on a mission to make a big impact at the Democratic National Convention this week. After New York City made it illegal to advertise entire homes for rent for less than 30 days on the site, Airbnb is fighting back with force in Philadelphia. The home rental platform is not only hosting a panel on the sharing economy, but has allotted a five-figure budget to advertise in Philadelphia during the DNC. The company is hoping that through the panel, ads and party co-hosted with BET, they will be able to win the affections of influential Democrats during the convention. But there are still many vocal critics of Airbnb in the party. Last month, Elizabeth Warren asked the Federal Trade Commision to investigate Airbnb’s effect on affordable housing in cities….

David Campos has built much of his political career on loud calls to preserve housing stock and combat gentrification, and as he approaches the end of his final term as District 9 Supervisor, he’s crafted a characteristic stand to crack down on short term rental violations. In April he proposed amendments to incentivize enforcement of existing short term rental laws by fining platforms, rather than users, like Airbnb as much as $1,000 per day per unregistered unit listed on their websites. That stand, however, has turned into a political gamble with looming lawsuits and potential pitfalls…

Airbnb has had a rough couple of weeks, particularly in NYC, and I’m not surprised. Airbnb has always struck me as a good small idea but a terrible big idea. That’s because it doesn’t understand housing and isn’t designed to. We are finally starting to see why that is such a large problem, especially for certain neighborhoods like mine in the East Village. Is there a way to take the positives of Airbnb, what it gets right about hotels, and remove what it gets wrong about housing? I’d like to think so. I have had enough positive experiences with Airbnb on a micro-level to see how a different model could find that balance. I just don’t think it’s going to come from a $30 billion Silicon Valley company. It seems like a lot of local governments are coming to the same conclusion….

A little over a year after enacting one of the strictest short-term rental laws in the U.S., the city of Santa Monica has issued 893 fines to local property owners and the online platforms that display short-term rental listings, and has collected $20,000 from Airbnb, KPCC has learned…

Hosts in Japan are learning the hard way that the home-sharing site’s fastest-growing market is also becoming the next flashpoint in a global battle over the sharing economy. Hoteliers are up in arms, local residents complain that outsiders are invading their neighbourhoods, and Japanese officials say renting out private homes is illegal…