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The big challenge for P2P marketplaces: regulation
The big challenge for P2P marketplaces: regulation
By: FRANCESCA PICK
There’s been a lot of excitement recently around the emerging sharing economy and collaborative consumption business models. Despite all the enthusiasm, regulatory challenges could dampen the outlook of many disruptive, peer-to-peer (p2p) business models.
As we have written about previously, the sharing economy has brought forth many innovative business models that enable individuals to save and earn money, reconnect with their local communities and shift to more sustainable and environmentally conscious lifestyles.
The innovative, untried nature of these emerging online business models also puts them in a head-on collision course with regulators. While many of these disruptive business ideas are shaking up established industries, like hospitality or urban transportation, in a good way, the regulatory framework they require is still missing.
Arun Sundararajan, professor at New York University Stern School of Business, recently gave an interesting interview with TechCrunch about how to regulate the sharing economy without blocking further innovation.
Its not surprising, when there is something new and innovative, for there to be regulatory challenges around safety,
he told TechCrunch.
Especially p2p marketplaces are faced with these issues, since they enable private individuals to undergo business-like transactions such as renting out their space, car or offering their labor. An increasing number of such transactions has begun to cross the line from being recreational or making a few extra dollars to becoming a significant source of income. This makes these activities commercial and, as Shareable Magazine has pointed out, puts many platforms in a legal grey area.
Here are some of the most pressing ongoing regulatory issues related to p2p business models:
Taxis Challenge Ridesharing
One of the most prominent regulatory issues of the past months has been taking place in on-demand ridesharing in California. The two San Francisco startups SideCar and Lyft enable people driving through the city to give others a ride by connecting through a smartphone app. Since these services’ drivers do not have certified taxi licenses (but do undergo extensive screening), California regulators sent them cease-and-desist letters, leading to an uproar in the California ridesharing community.
In 2010 Uber, a high-end on demand ridesharing service, was also in hot water for competing with regular taxis. The Taxi and Limousine Commission of New York (TLC), the only taxi provider in the city, refused to grant the company the right to operate in the municipality.
Do short term apartment rentals violate rental laws?
P2p vacation rentals — marketplaces that let people rent out their living space for short periods of time to travelers–are increasingly being challenged by city authorities. Many local laws in urban areas prohibit short-term rentals for under 30 days. Nor is the hotel industry exactly thrilled about its new competitors, who are neither regulated nor pay hotel taxes.
Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times reported that many Airbnb hosts in New York are breaking the law (unknowingly) and could be subject to five figure fines or eviction. This has unleashed debates on who is responsible for informing hosts on their local laws and who is accountable in the rare case that something does happen. Since these limitations are not stopping the p2p rental market from continuing to grow at a rapid pace, solutions to these legal challenges are needed soon.
Insurance and p2p carsharing
Even though the actual risk of being dropped by your insurance company when renting out your car on p2p platforms like Getaround, Autonetzer or Voiturelibis very low, it is worth mentioning that insurance is another important area in which the majority of marketplaces still lack a regulatory framework.
In his interview with TechCrunch, which you can watch below, Arun Sundararajan, emphasized that now is a good time to take a step back and look at what the role of regulators should be in the sharing economy. In an industry this new, there is still a lot of work to be done. But if marketplaces work together to raise awareness among regulators, it should only be a matter of time for these challenges to be overcome.
In 2013, we’ll be looking more closely at legal challenges and insurance issues for p2p marketplaces.
Source: Trustcloud
Berrie Pelser, Ber|Art Visual Design:
Ber|Art Visual Design V.O.F. delivers high-end secure (PCI-Compliant) WordPress, Typo3 and Magento Linux Cloud VPS Hosting with professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plus Social Media (Social Network) integration, branding and strategy.
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TrustCloud is valuable across multiple sharing verticals #TrustCloud
TrustCloud is valuable across multiple sharing verticals, survey shows.
by: FRANCESCA PICK
An online survey conducted by TrustCloud with over 700 respondents shows that its service is useful accross multiple sharing verticals. 56% of survey respondents said that they would use TrustCloud in connection with various types of peer-to-peer (p2p) sharing marketplaces.
During a two month period from September 26. till November 31. of this year, TrustCloud used an online survey tool to ask visitors of its webpage the following question: “Why would you look up someone’s TrustCloud profile?” Participants could chose from several answer categories, select “all of the above” or enter an individual reply in a customized field. The survey had 714 participants, which were TrustCloud as well as non-TrustCloud users.
According to the results, an astonishing 56% of survey respondents said they would look up somebody on TrustCloud because they were looking to share something on one specific or various different p2p marketplaces. 34% of participants claimed that all given options (see image) were relevant reasons for using TrustCloud. This suggests that trust indicators are helpful in enabling online p2p transactions and are valuable accross different sharing verticals. As TrustCloud firmly believes, this gives emphasis to the necessity for trust to become a portable metric within the sharing ecosystem.
When we look at individual sharing verticals, the most important reason for using TrustCloud (10,7%) was looking up people that users are thinking about staying with or renting out their house to over p2p vacation rental sites such as Airbnb, Wimdu, 9flats and Homeaway. This is an interesting result in light of the fact that p2p vacation rentals are currently the most successful examples of p2p collaborative consumption models.
6.7% of survey participants said they would use the site because they are interested in dating somebody, while approximately 4,5 % were interested in both using it to share an item or hire somebody as a babysitter. Surprisingly, ride sharing was rated as the least important reason for using the service with only 3.8 %. This may be linked to the fact that the majority of the TrustCloud website traffic currently comes from North America, where ridesharing is still a niche phenomenon in comparison to Europe.
Outside of p2p sharing verticals, the survey also found that a large number of repondants claimed to be interested in looking up people they would like to hire or conduct business with (for instance over a tasksharing site). This shows that not only social media platforms like LinkedIn and Klout, but also trust indicators play an significant role in people’s job reseach and hiring decisions.
A big thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!
Berrie Pelser, Ber|Art Visual Design:
Ber|Art Visual Design V.O.F. delivers high-end secure (PCI-Compliant) WordPress, Typo3 and Magento Linux Cloud VPS Hosting with professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plus Social Media (Social Network) integration, branding and strategy.
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Why you should claim your Trust #TrustCloud
Why you should claim your Trust #TrustCloud now
How did you find out about TrustCloud?
I got invited by one of my friends. I was curious, did have a look, was positively surprised and started to work on my TrustCloud profile.
How is TrustCloud useful to you?
It is useful in more ways IMO, it tell something about yourself and if you can be trusted (or not), people and (future) customers can have a look on my website but on my website my phone number and address are not verified. They can have look on my LinkedIn profile but also on LinkedIn they cannot see if I am trusted. On TrustCloud all comes together, all social media profiles are connected, address, emails and phone numbers are verified, friends and business relations can give endorsements on your trust factors. Count this together and you have a personal Trust Score.
With the TrustCloud badge on our business home page visitors can see how trusted I am. Hopefully it will influence their decision positively to do business with me or to keep doing business with me. At this moment I already have an example of a new client who used the new TrustCloud badge (together with the WOT badge and Comodo badge) in their decision to do business with me.
What do you like about the TrustCloud service?
Part of this answer is in the remarks above. I hope I will be able to implement my TrustCloud badge in all sharing economy services out there. I hope I can implement my TrustCloud badge on e-Commerce services like eBay (and for the Dutch on Marktplaats) I think a TrustCloud badge can be a big help on dating sites, about sites (like Xeeme) and on social media measurement sites (like Klout). There are lots of possibilities where it will be a big advantage to see the person behind it, one click on the TrustCloud badge is enough to see who the person is en if he can be trusted.
Other comments?
Considered TrustCloud is just started and still in a BETA face it is already a fast growing mature full and functional trust system, ready for the next steps in Trust. A small team of smart and enthusiastic people are busy every day to make TrustCloud better and better, new social media networks will be introduced, new trust factors will be used, and much more.
home: https://trustcloud.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/trustcloud/
Xeeme: http://xeeme.com/TrustCloud
Testimonial Berrie Pelser
What is TrustCloud
TrustCloud measures your virtuous online behaviors and transactions online and then turns it into a portable TrustScore you can use anywhere on the Web and within the Sharing Economy. This is how it works: Claim your trustworthy online data by signing up on the Trustcloud website at www.trustcloud.com and connect different data sources to your profile, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Tripadvisor. To create an account it is sufficient to add only one network, so this step only takes a few seconds.
Once you have an account, you can then continue to add networks and verify information such as email addresses, postal address and cell phone number. You can also earn so-called TrustCloud badges for connecting networks, verifications as well as being a bug hunter or providing valuable feedback to the TrustCloud Team. Endorsements add a further qualitative dimension to the platform, since they let users give eachother “+T” for a number of virtues such as friendly, helpful, accountable, compassionate and organized.
How do you improve your TrustScore? Similar to how you improve your resume’ or LinkedIn account by adding more information about yourself and your accomplishments, TrustScores are improved by volunteering sources where your accomplishments are updated. As in the offline world, transparency is rewarded. After these sources are hooked up, just continue to be accountable and trustworthy in your behavior and transactions online. Those actions will be detected by TrustCloud algorithms to adjust your score.
The way you can get the most out of your TrustCloud profile once it is set up is to start using your TrustCard on different third party Websites. A TrustCard is an online widget that shows your profile information such as picture, name, TrustScore, data sources, and the TrustCard Badges you’ve earned. You can use it in peer-to-peer marketplaces to let others know you are trustworthy by integrating your TrustCard into your user profile. Show off the success you’ve earned by embedding your TrustCard into your website, blog site or even an email signature.
Berrie Pelser, Ber|Art Visual Design:
Ber|Art Visual Design V.O.F. delivers high-end secure (PCI-Compliant) WordPress, Typo3 and Magento Linux Cloud VPS Hosting with professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plus Social Media (Social Network) integration, branding and strategy.
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Interview with @xinchung CEO #TrustCloud, claim your trustworthy data today and use it anywhere
Xin Chung CEO TrustCloud
Interview with Xin Chung CEO of TrustCloud ( #TrustCloud )
- Homepage TrustCloud: ( https://trustcloud.com/ )
- Information: Introduction, information etc. please read this PDF
- Facebook Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/trustcloud/
- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/trustcloud/
- LinkedIn Company: http://www.linkedin.com/company/746927
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/xinchung
- TrustCloud Card Xin Chung: https://trustcloud.com/!/XinChung
QUESTIONS to Xin Chung, CEO TrustCloud:
1. What is the 140 character definition of TrustCloud?
“TrustCloud empowers you to claim your trustworthy data and use it anywhere”
( easy ReTweet: http://goo.gl/106gv )
2. How did you get the idea to start TrustCloud, where does TrustCloud fit in the ecosystem and how do you see the future of TrustCloud?
TrustCloud first product, www.whatsupgo.com experimented with the strength of bonds between friends. Facebook Friend Groups and Google Circles functionality encouraged us to address trust between “reputable strangers”
3. Why should I use TrustCloud over other “similar” networks, what makes it different?
TrustCloud is different from other networks because we address the problem of trust in peer marketplaces using a 3 layer approach: Verification, Behavior, Transaction. We focus on trust attributes that are help in making a p2p deciscion. Klout measures influence; endorsements by topic, Connect.me measures expertise by topic, Zerply measures wide, legit.com, getscaffold.com : still waiting for their products!
4. One of the concerns that some users have is the security of TrustCloud members information, particularly for those accounts linked to TrustCloud that conduct real world financial transactions such as eBay. What level of information is accessible to TrustCloud (on eBay for example) and how do you protect your members information?
TrustCloud takes user privacy and data security very seriously.
A. It’s important to know that TrustCloud does not pull any actual financial data from our Trust Network sources.
We mainly gather:
- transactional data such as user reviews, ratings, and feedback.
- bio data, much of which is shared publicly by the user already
B. All sensitive data is double encrypted by two separate algorithms in our database, and protected by SSL encryption on our website
C. Access to our PII user data is controlled by ACL access lists, further limiting exposure to outside sources
D. When our members opt out or ask us to remove their profile, we go to great lengths to make sure their data is actually destroyed
5. Have you conducted any research to see how people judge other people with whom they meet in person versus online? And can you add a layer which includes the context in which trust is being declared? For example, I do not “know” the doctor I am seeing today, yet I trust him/her based on recommendations, degrees, bedside manner. I do not know Berrie Pelser but I trust him based on his thoughtful commentary, the links he posts, his website, his full profile on LI, etc.
TrustCloud
TrustCloud has ongoing research with Stanford University Sociology Department regarding the user of “transitive reputation/trustworthiness” that degrees of referrals give. We also have inhouse trust expert from Harvard, Mr. Charlie Greene www.trustedadvisor.com who has 3 books and extensive knowledge on trust formula and metrics in business.
6. What will be the strategic intent between TrustCloud and Connect.me and what can we expect from that and what is your strategic intent to get more perspective or integration with the big business networks – aka Empire Avenue, LinkedIn groups, Facebook Fanpage, Google+ Business Page, Web of Trust (WOT), Xeeme, BrandYourself, Youtube, Viadeo, Pinterest, Xing etc.?
TrustCloud is a founding member of Connect.me’s Trust Respect Network. We will be working with other companies in the Verification and Trust space to develop interoperable models of trust for an emerging federated identity ecosystem.
7. What’s reasoning for +T badge options such as Organized, Reliable, Friendly as they could come across as kind of fluffy and not very business-like?
TrustCloud has chosen these attributes because they are so important for the sharing economy that we are addressing today. While difficult to measure objectively, these are very important subjective endorsements that our collaborative consumption users really care about.
8. What is your stance on such EAv or Flavors missions asking others for a +T?
TrustCloud is careful not to diminish the meaningfulness of our brand from excessive “gamification” for the sake of more users. However , as LinkedIn, Klout, Connect.me, Zerply begin expand their vouching systems, we think endorsement data can become more valuable– not to mention a fun and sticky activity for users.
9. How will the share economies be involved in TrustCloud? Can you give some examples?
TrustCloud sees portability across different sharing economies critical to it’s growth. For instance, AirBnB grew 500% to 10MM room-nights in 2011 with only an email an paypal data from it’s users.
This is “low-data friction” for a “low-stakes” transaction. We think other emerging sharing verticals such as car, ride, task-share sites like getaround.com, carpooling.com, and taskrabbit will benefit from haveing “portable trustworthiness” across different verticals.
10. Do you have anything to add to this interview we forgot to ask?
TrustCloud is a big fan of “Data to the People” It’s true that Trust data is not perfect– Trust means different things to different people (context), so it can’t be easily boxed. We do our best ot create a useful, intuitive, and fair system for online citizens to own the success they’ve earned online, and use it anywhere. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ .
Berrie Pelser: https://trustcloud.com/!/BerriePelser
