Airbnb, the website that let’s people rent out their spare rooms like hotel rooms has added a new feature which uses your Facebook account to let you know if any of your friends know anything about the people renting out the rooms.
On the surface this is a really useful feature. I’d certainly rather rent a room from someone who I might have something in common with that a complete stranger, but as with all internet privacy issues, the question of where to draw the line crops up.
I logged in to Airbnb using Facebook connect and checked for rooms in Dublin. Two people who are friends of my friends were renting out rooms. I would put this down to not that many people in Dublin using the service yet. I checked London. Three friends of friends this time. I guess I don’t know that many people in London yet.
Then I checked New York. Eleven people in my social graph were renting out rooms this time, but this time it included people who had gone to the same school as me. I have to say I think that connection is pretty tenuous. I left school 17 years ago, and I’m not in touch with many people from there any more. Maybe Airbnb should provide some sort of controls on which parts of your social graph to use?
I have to admit it definitely feels a bit creepy having such open access to information about your friends’ friends, but I guess both sides have opted in at least. My real concern is when companies and their websites start trying to take advantage of this information without really informing you in the process.
