Airbnb is offering an explanation for why it removed thousands of listings just before going public with its data last year. The company has released a letter addressed to the New York State Legislature that explains its process and talks about the company's commitment to its Community Compact, a set of core principles with which it hopes to operate.
The New York Daily News was the first to report on this development that follows a report issued earlier this month that revealed that the company might have gotten rid of over 1,000 listings to paint itself in a better light.
"following the announcement of the Community Compact last November, we removed approximately 1,500 listings from our platform in New York City that were controlled by commercial operators and did not reflect Airbnb’s vision for our community. This was not the first time we removed listings from our platform. Over the past few years we have removed thousands of listings in New York City because they were not permanent homes, as well as for other quality issues," part of the letter addressed to the legislature reads.
In December last year Airbnb released data that showed that 95 percent of the hosts in the city only had a single listing. However several subsequent analyses raised the question whether more than half their listings were illegal. The removal of the listings was partly in response to what the company found in reviewing its data, and in its letter to the state legislature it says it will continue to strictly enforce these community standards going forward.
According to Airbnb's most recent findings as of February 15, 2016, about 94 percent of their hosts in the city only have a single listing.
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