Party-pooping-as-a-service

Last week, Airbnb began offering its hosts discounts on “three of the top party prevention devices.”

The company claims these little party poopers are a non-intrusive way to keep pesky parties at bay, but some security critics and consumers aren’t comfortable with the bite-sized surveillance devices.

Airbnb’s got a party problem, and now it’s pulling out all the stops 

Airbnb has always banned unauthorized parties at its properties, but it has long struggled to enforce its rules.

After a deadly shooting in an Airbnb last year, the company explicitly banned “party houses” and resolved to “combat unauthorized parties and get rid of abusive host and guest conduct.”

The company also improved its own internal party-policing system to flag high-risk reservations, created a “party house” rapid-response team, and stiffened the penalties for violators. 

And now it’s subsidizing surveillance systems

Airbnb explains on its dedicated party prevention page that these devices are meant to protect properties, maintain privacy for guests, and preserve friendly neighbor relationships.

Instead of introducing its own privacy products, Airbnb is offering deep discounts on 3 top-rated 3rd-party products:

• Minut, $99 (normally $149) 
• NoiseAware, $149 (normally $199) 
• Roomonitor, $39 (normally $165) 

All 3 monitor noise, which Airbnb sees as “a leading indicator of property misuse.”

Minut also monitors temperature, motion, and humidity (although no one has yet explained how humidity is related to party prevalence… ).

But some (party?) people aren’t pleased

Airbnb assures consumers that none of these devices record sounds, they merely measure them.

But some critics still aren’t comfortable with the increased surveillance.

Evan Greer, the deputy director of the digital-rights organization Fight for the Future, told Vice that a measurement-only device is certainly better than “internet-connected surveillance cameras or listening devices in your home.” 

“But we’re hurtling toward a world where almost everything we own is monitoring us in some way,” she said. “And I’m not sure that’s actually going to be a safer world.”

Coloradans who spent extra time shoveling snow out of their driveways last year should direct complaints to their local university.

In a paper published Monday, a team of University of Colorado scientists revealed the results of an effort to turbocharge weather patterns — with a few sprinkles of the compound silver iodide. At some test sites, snowfall nearly doubled.

It’s called ‘cloud seeding’ — but you might call it cloud’s cradle

Since the process often involves silver iodide, it’s tempting to picture scientists shooting cannons of Tiffany & Co. sterling into the sky. But cloud seeding is a bit more complicated.

The compound is dropped onto clouds from circling planes — it’s supposed to speed up the growth of ice crystals.

Where did this idea come from? Kurt Vonnegut’s brother Bernard was one of the first scientists to use silver iodide to spruce up weather patterns — the idea influenced the fictional “ice-nine” in Kurt’s book Cat’s Cradle.

Everyone wants to be their own Weather Channel

Cloud seeding has weathered a turbulent half-century of life. The US tried it during the Vietnam War; China followed suit during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The results have been mixed, but that hasn’t cooled excitement. Several Western states are getting into cloud seeding to fight intensifying droughts.

And the private sector is forecasting more successes: A group of corporations with dystopian names, like Weather Modification, Inc, are jockeying to cash in on the trend.

Many people are starting to recognize that their data has a price, and they’re questioning whether they’re willing to trade it away. Those concerns are giving rise to new businesses that focus on preserving users’ privacy. They’re popping up in all corners of internet tech, like…

• Analytics: Google Analytics vs. Simple Analytics.
• Search engines: Google Search vs. DuckDuckGo.
• Web browsers: Google Chrome vs. Brave.
• Email unsubscription tools: Unroll Me vs. Leave Me Alone.

In a recent Trends report, we tackle how these tools balance ethical growth with the need to turn a profit. There’s still opportunity for businesses to capitalize on this growing market, with services that…

• Help people safeguard their info (think password managers, VPNs, and online-cleanup work).
• Allow companies to follow compliance rules (like privacy-policy generators).
• Educate the public on privacy (KrebsOnSecurity is just one example. Ahrefs estimates that the value of the site’s organic traffic is $560k). 

Don’t doubt the value of starting small. Cloudflare, which now has a ~$5B market cap, started as a project to track how spammers harvested email addresses. It now provides a range of security services for more than 20m internet properties.

Why? Privacy is universal.

Want more insights on the privacy industry? Read our full Trends report.