Right but the policy is to prevent hosts from declining guests due to their photo. (my skin sore example was meant to be tongue-in-cheek 🙂 While I am sure those objecting to the policy here would not discriminate based on sex, race, or other protected category I am sure Airbnb, looking at their analytics, see the opposite.
If the reservations are generally rejected say 5% of the time (based on the market area, property type, etc.) yet reservations with photos of a young person / old person / minority / whatever show a 15% rejection rate, it could very well be due to discrimination. Airbnb therefor makes an option to allow the guest to mask their photo prior to booking, further protecting themselves (and us) from liability by maintaining a platform that would not allow hosts to discriminate.
I get it and while some hosts want to mull over the photo, use their personal experience, tea leaves or Ouija board to determine if the potential guest will be a good guest - I agree with Airbnb. Guests can still have their photo public if they choose, but if they have been subject to discrimination and would like to rent a room free of that hassle, they can.
Now certain countries or regions may not have the same anti-discrimination laws as we do here, but I think it's good policy. If a host wants to protect themselves from a bad guest, they would be better served doing it other ways (not allowing renting a 3 bedroom house to a single guest for one day, keeping the cost higher to weed out those just looking for cheap accomodations, being clear in their rules and finding ways to monitor compliance with the guests, etc.)
My 2c. -R
