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the guest' stay, experience, or otherwise, and therefore, we cannot
guarantee the safety of our Hosts, guests, and third parties. The
actions of Hosts, guests, and other third parties have resulted and can
further result in fatalities, injuries, other bodily harm, fraud,
invasion of privacy, property damage, discrimination, brand, and
reputational damage, which have created and could continue to create
potential legal or other substantial liabilities for us. We do not
verify the identity of all of our Hosts and guests nor do we verify or
screen third parties who may be present during a reservation made
through our platform. Our identity verification processes rely on, among
other things, information provided by Hosts and guests, and our ability
to validate that information and the effectiveness of third-party
service providers that support our verification processes may be
limited. In addition, we do not currently and may not in the future
require users to re-verify their identity following their successful
completion of the initial verification process. Certain verification
processes, including legacy verification processes on which we
previously relied, may be less reliable than others. We screen against
certain regulatory, terrorist, and sanctions watch lists, conduct
criminal background checks for certain U.S. Hosts, U.S. guests, and
Hosts in India, and conduct additional screening processes to flag and
investigate suspicious activities. These processes are beneficial but
not exhaustive and have limitations due to a variety of factors,
including laws and regulations that prohibit or limit our ability to
conduct effective background checks in some jurisdictions, the
unavailability and inaccuracy of information, and the inability of our
systems to detect all suspicious activity. There can be no assurances
that these measures will significantly reduce criminal or fraudulent
activity on our platform. The criminal background checks for certain
U.S. Hosts, U.S. guests, and Hosts in India, and other screening
processes rely on, among other things, information provided by Hosts and
guests, our ability to validate that information, the accuracy,
completeness, and availability of the underlying information relating to
criminal records, the digitization of certain records, the evolving
regulatory landscape in this area such as in the data privacy and data
security space, and on the effectiveness of third-party service
providers that may fail to conduct such background checks adequately or
disclose information that could be relevant to a determination of
eligibility, and we do not run criminal background checks and other
screening processes on third parties who may be present during a
reservation made through our platform.
In addition, we have not in the past and may not in the future undertake
to independently verify the safety, suitability, location, quality,
compliance with Airbnb policies or standards, and legal compliance, such
as fire code compliance or the presence of carbon monoxide detectors,
hidden cameras or pool safety, of all our Hosts'listings or experiences.
We have not in the past and may not in the future
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undertake to independently verify the location, safety, or suitability
of experiences for individual guests, the suitability, qualifications,
or credentials of experiences Hosts, or the qualifications of individual
experiences guests. In the limited circumstances where we have
undertaken the verification or screening of certain aspects of Host
qualifications, listings or experiences, the scope of such processes may
be limited and rely on, among other things, information provided by
Hosts and guests and the ability of our internal teams or third-party
vendors to adequately conduct such verification or screening practices.
In addition, we have not in the past taken and may not in the future
take steps to re-verify or re-screen Host qualifications, listings, or
experiences following initial review. We have in the past relied, and
may in the future, rely on Hosts and guests to disclose information
relating to their listings and experiences and such information may be
inaccurate or incomplete. We have created policies and standards to
respond to issues reported with listings, but certain listings may pose
heightened safety risks to individual users because those issues have
not been reported to us or because our customer support team has not
taken the requisite action based on our policies. We rely, at least in
part, on reports of issues from Hosts and guests to investigate and
enforce many of our policies and standards. In addition, our policies
may not contemplate certain safety risks posed by listings or individual
Hosts or guests or may not sufficiently address those risks.
We have also faced civil litigation, regulatory investigations, and
inquiries involving allegations of, among other things, unsafe or
unsuitable listings, discriminatory policies, data processing,
practices, or behavior on and off our platform or by Hosts, guests, and
third parties, general misrepresentations regarding the safety or
accuracy of offerings on our platform, and other Host, guest, or
third-party actions that are criminal, violent, inappropriate,
dangerous, or fraudulent. While we recognize that we need to continue to
build trust and invest in innovations that will support trust when it
comes to our policies, tools, and procedures to help protect Hosts,
guests, and the communities in which our Hosts operate, we may not be
successful in doing so. Similarly, listings that are inaccurate, of a
lower than expected quality, or that do not comply with our policies may
harm guests and public perception of the quality and safety of listings
on our platform and materially adversely affect our reputation,
business, results of operations, and financial condition.
If Hosts, guests, or third parties engage in criminal activity,
misconduct, fraudulent, negligent, or inappropriate conduct or use our
platform as a conduit for criminal activity, consumers may not consider
our platform and the listings on our platform safe, and we may receive
negative media coverage, or be subject to involvement in a government
investigation concerning such activity, which could adversely impact our
brand and reputation, and lower the adoption rate of our platform. For
example: