Account sharing in the context of networked hospitality exchange

  • Authors:
  • Airi M I Lampinen

  • Affiliations:
  • Microsoft Research & Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (Finland), Cambridge, MA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing
  • Year:
  • 2014

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Abstract

This paper examines account sharing in the context of networked hospitality exchange. I discuss the dynamics of account sharing based on a qualitative interview study with multi-person households who offer to host visitors via Couchsurfing.org. Findings reveal that multi-person households that engage in account sharing face several challenges, including presenting multiple people in one profile, coordinating negotiations over access to domestic space, and representing in a fair way the reputation hosts have accumulated together over time. Amidst the rising rhetoric of a 'reputation economy', this paper calls for engaging the inclusions, exclusions, and inequalities that reputation metrics may renew or create, especially if they fail to acknowledge people's account sharing practices. Furthermore, this paper encourages adopting a design focus beyond individuals in order to support maintaining shared accounts and interacting with others through them. The findings have implications for a variety of hospitality exchange services and other online systems.