Report 1577

EPIC has filed a complaint with the FTC, alleging that Airbnb has committed unfair and deceptive practices in violation of the FTC Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Airbnb secretly rates customers “trustworthiness" based on a patent that considers such factors as “authoring online content with negative language.” The company’s opaque, proprietary algorithm also considers "posts on the person’s social network account" as well the individual's relationships with others, and adjusts the "trustworthiness" score based on the scores of those associations. EPIC said the company failed to comply with "established public policies" for AI decision-making, such as the OECD AI Principles and the Universal Guidelines for AI. EPIC has recently brought complaints to the FTC about the employment screening firm HireVue and the Universal Tennis Rating secret scoring technique. EPIC has also petitioned the FTC to conduct a rulemaking for "the use of artificial intelligence in commerce." The EPIC AI Policy Sourcebook includes the OECD AI Principles, the Universal Guidelines for AI, and other AI policy frameworks.