Image: Airbnb
After Airbnb was accused of “farming” Craigslist, or using automated spam accounts to harvest email addresses and get listers to post their ads on Craigslist, Airbnb has admitted to the practice but blames rogue outside salespeople.
Airbnb says it contracted out to salespeople to sell listings person-to-person but these people instead farmed Craigslist.
Our instinctive response is: “Please.”
Plenty of people did not-so-savory things to get their startup off the ground. The Craigslist thing is unethical and against Craigslist’s rules but not, as far as anyone can tell, illegal. It’s sad and bad and not to be encouraged. But it also doesn’t take away from the huge amount of work and talent that goes into turning a small-scale success into a huge company, which Airbnb is doing.
Maybe Airbnb’s excuse is real. Maybe it’s not. We probably won’t ever know.
(Via Tnooz)
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