Airbnb outrage over city’s intel gathering

AIRBNB IS demanding the city explain its cooperation with what the company deemed a Nixonian use of “secret intelligence-gathering” by a hotel industry- and labor-funded group on the site’s users, the Daily News has learned.

The letter to the city comes after political consultant Neal Kwatra, whose Metropolitan Public Strategies represents the Hotel and Motel Trades Council as well as Share Better, an advocacy group largely funded by the union and the hotel industry, outlined to Bloomberg News their use of private investigators to conduct stings on suspected illegal Airbnb listings.

The findings are then forwarded to the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement.

The report follows a News story last month outlining how another Share Better and Hotel and Motel Trades Council consultant forwarded data on Airbnb users to the city at the request of the Mayor’s Special Enforcement Office.

“New Yorkers are wary of the city’s use of private investigators, particularly those who may have fundamental conflicts of interest,” Airbnb public policy head Josh Meltzer wrote.

The letter, addressed to of Special Enforcement Office Executive Director Christian Klossner, asks the city explain its policy on reviewing and keeping information gathered by private entities and how the city ensures the information was gathered in a legal way.

The city denied it had an operational partnership with Share Better, but said it will investigate factual findings anyone provides the office.

"We cannot ignore a claim of lawbreaking simply because a company does not like the source,” said spokesman Alexander Schnell.