Airbnb is starting to offer something called Verified ID. This means it’s finally making users prove that they’re real human beings and not a robot or scam artist.
Here’s how it works: You can earn a verified badge by showing Airbnb a piece of your online identity — Facebook profile, Twitter account, or even Yelp reviews you’ve written — as well as a corresponding piece of real-world documentation, like a scan of your driver’s licence or your passport. The name obviously has to match for you to get a badge.
A quarter of US users will be required to go through this process starting today, and eventually everybody will have to do it. If you want to go ahead and verify yourself, you can do that here. You’d think Airbnb would have introduced something like this by now, but better late than never. [Airbnb]