San Francisco, ground zero in the tech startup boom, has also become one of the costliest housing markets in the U.S., thanks to a housing shortage that frustrates residents and motivates landlords and property owners to evict tenants and replace them with tech workers at sky high rents. In this heated environment, privately held Airbnb Inc., the best known of the home-renting services, is both a symbol and one of many factors helping fuel the displacement of longtime residents in San Francisco and beyond. It is probably safe to say that Airbnb has a love-hate relationship with the city where the company was founded by two of it co-founders who rented out air mattresses in the living room with breakfast to help pay their rent. Now, Airbnb is suing the city in federal court over a local law about to go into effect, an ordinance voted on unanimously by a Board of Supervisors that is less friendly to tech than the city’s mayor. The suit, which invokes, among other things, a 20-year federal act protecting freedom of expression on the internet, looks like it could be a major legal test of this mostly unregulated territory of home renting and of big import to the company now valued at $30 billion on paper….

The Internet Association, which represents groups such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter, is asking Hawaii Gov. David Ige to reconsider his intent to veto a bill that would allow Airbnb, Homeaway, VRBO and other alternative accommodations companies to act as a tax brokers on behalf of the state. On Monday, David Louie, a former state attorney general, sent a letter to the governor on behalf of the association, which is concerned that its members could be liable for users who fail to post such information as their tax identification numbers on their listings….

Memphis City Council initiated a discussion Tuesday about taxing short-term accommodation rental platforms such as Airbnb Inc. and HomeAway Inc. Councilman Berlin Boyd said short-term rentals are a gray-area loophole to the city’s hotel/motel tax. “There are a ton of properties available and a ton of revenue we’re potentially losing,” Boyd said. Memphis City Council is looking into an ordinance similar to ones in Nashville and San Fransisco that treats short-term rental property in a similar sense to a hotel or motel if it’s being rented on a regular basis….

A new report from short term rental website Airbnb claims the service isn’t contributing to the rental vacancy problem in Vancouver. But a UBC student who just completed a research project on the rental site says he doesn’t believe the numbers. The Airnb report says the average host ‘typically’ makes an income of about $6,500 a year by occasionally renting space and using that money to pay for their rent or groceries. But Iian Marjoribanks who studies housing at UBC says the devil is in the details. “‘Typical’ means that they are using the median and not the mean average, which is what you would normally use in a report like this. That’s misleading because that means there are a lot of people making very little money and then you have a few people who are making most of the money which is what I found in my research.”…

A newly-launched national coalition that is taking aim at Airbnb plans to call on Toronto councillors to regulate online short-term rentals in the city. Fairbnb launched on Thursday at Toronto city hall, its campaign targeting the so-called home-sharing market in Canada. But its chairwoman said the organization doesn’t want to ban Airbnb. “We don’t fault ordinary people who legally rent out a spare bedroom to help a visitor or to help pay bills,” Lis Pimentel told reporters in Toronto. “However, we do believe Canadian cities must modernize their laws and enforcement so that there are fair, consistent and respectful market rules for short-term rentals.” Pimentel said vendors are renting out hundreds of homes through Airbnb, something that’s creating ghost hotels alongside a regulated industry. It’s also taking rental properties off the market, which are being offered on Airbnb instead, and “adding to the city’s affordable housing crisis,” she said….

The unassuming white colonial home in Broadway-Flushing listed on AirBnB boasts six bedrooms able to accommodate up to 13 guests. The residence is advertised as a single-family home, but the listing is meant to attract renters seeking a cheap party/event space on short notice. Last Friday, state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), delivered a press conference alongside the Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association to oppose the listing of single-family homes on AirBnB for multiple renters or as party spaces, both of which they say are in violation of the City’s administrative code, zoning and deed restrictions. “This listing represents everything that’s wrong with AirBnB,” said Avella in a press statement. “This is a quiet, residential neighborhood and the advertisement is encouraging large groups to come and hold events, creating a revolving door of unknown groups of people.”…

Airbnb, which is under fire from state regulators, revealed on Thursday that it had taken down over 2,000 listings in the past year that might be illegal hotel rooms. The company said it removed 2,233 listings posted by hosts who had multiple apartments for rent — a telling sign that it’s a shady landlord operating an illegal hotel. The vast majority — 1,585 — of those listings were in Manhattan, including close to 600 in Midtown, the company said. Critics have long said that landlords are illegally renting out rooms by the night on the site instead of offering to needy tenants, draining the already scarce city housing supply. In announcing the removals, Airbnb seemed to acknowledge that the practice was happening….

Airbnb Inc. said it kicked 2,233 more listings off its platform in New York City, seeking to weed out hosts who violate its policies as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo weighs whether to sign legislation that would make it illegal to advertise multiple listings. The 2,233 listings, which amount to about 5 percent of those on the home-sharing website in the city, “appeared to be hosts with multiple listings that could impact long-term housing availability,” Airbnb said Thursday in a statement. Airbnb, which is raising money at a $30 billion valuation, is facing regulatory pressure from two of its largest U.S. cities, New York and its hometown San Francisco. Airbnb is suing San Francisco for passing a law that would fine the company for listing units that aren’t registered with the city. Airbnb argues the new requirements violate federal law and its First Amendment rights. Officials in New York and San Francisco are concerned that Airbnb is causing housing to be taken off the market, further crowding the limited supply in those cities. Critics argue that houses that would otherwise be rented out or sold are being listed on Airbnb instead, creating more space for tourists at the expense of residents….

Today, a new coalition called “Fairbnb.ca” launched its campaign to bring legal fairness to the growing ‘homeshare’ market in Canada. The Coalition is launching in Toronto, where Airbnb and similar firms have seen a rapid change in their business practices.