CSCW 2014 • Family February 15-19, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA Account Sharing in the Context of Networked Hospitality Exchange Airi Lampinen1,2,3 1 Microsoft Research 2 Helsinki Institute for Information 3 University of Helsinki 1 Memorial Drive, Technology HIIT/Aalto University Department of Social Research Cambridge, MA 02142, USA P.O. Box 15600, P.O. Box 54, 00014 University [email protected] 00076 Aalto, FINLAND of Helsinki, FINLAND ABSTRACT frequency may not be useful if organizational security This paper examines account sharing in the context of ignores people’s everyday practices of password sharing networked hospitality exchange. I discuss the dynamics of [7]. Characterizing password sharing as a nuanced practice account sharing based on a qualitative interview study with in which people engage with thought and care, Kaye [5] multi-person households who offer to host visitors via counters the more traditional conceptualization that frames Couchsurfing.org. Findings reveal that multi-person it as a deviant practice that should be stamped out. households that engage in account sharing face several challenges, including presenting multiple people in one This paper examines the broader issue of account sharing profile, coordinating negotiations over access to domestic in the context networked hospitality exchange. ‘Network hospitality’ [4] refers to how those engaging with space, and representing in a fair way the reputation hosts 1 have accumulated together over time. Amidst the rising hospitality exchange services, such as Couchsurfing.org , rhetoric of a ‘reputation economy’, this paper calls for connect to one another using online social networking engaging the inclusions, exclusions, and inequalities that systems, as well as to the kinds of relationships they reputation metrics may renew or create, especially if they perform when they meet face-to-face. On Couchsurfing.org, fail to acknowledge people’s account sharing practices. members can engage in hospitality exchange by hosting Furthermore, this paper encourages adopting a design focus visitors (‘couchsurfers’) or by staying with others as guests. beyond individuals in order to support maintaining shared In order to unravel practices of account sharing in the accounts and interacting with others through them. The context of networked hospitality exchange, I present a findings have implications for a variety of hospitality qualitative study on multi-person households who offer to exchange services and other online systems. host strangers in their homes through Couchsurfing.org. Findings illustrate that beyond sharing credentials, account Author Keywords sharing involves complex negotiations over how to present Sharing; account sharing, online profile; social network multiple people in a single profile, how to coordinate the service; Couchsurfing; reputation households’ outfacing communication and decisions over ACM Classification Keywords whether to grant potential visitors access to the home, as H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): well as how to share fairly the benefits of a good reputation. Miscellaneous. While the analysis in this paper focuses on a single system that fosters non-monetary network hospitality, the issues it INTRODUCTION raises have implications for a variety of online systems. Studies on password sharing in diverse contexts [5,7,10,11] First, there is a growing number of similar hospitality have pointed out challenges resulting from a disregard of exchange services, such as Bewelcome2 and Hospitality people’s practices and called for holistic approaches to Club3. Furthermore, when it comes to account sharing, sites designing systems and security policies. For instance, that make a business out of helping people monetize their focusing merely on password strength and change willingness to make domestic spaces or other tangible Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for resources available to others are likely to encounter similar personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are issues. The paper concludes with a discussion of designing not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies for shared use and an invitation to consider how a design bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit focus beyond individuals could help support users’ efforts is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. 1 http://www.couchsurfing.org/ CSCW'14, February 15 - 19, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. 2 http://www.bewelcome.org/ ACM 978-1-4503-2540-0/14/02$15.00. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531665 3 http://www.hospitalityclub.org/ 499 CSCW 2014 • Family February 15-19, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA to maintain shared accounts as well as to interact and Couchsurfing.org profiles serve to present two interwoven exchange with others through them. but distinguishable aspects of households: the domestic space and the people who live in it. The main part of the HOSPITALITY EXCHANGE VIA COUCHSURFING.ORG profile is taken up by personal information, including (1) The empirical site of this study, Couchsurfing.org, is a brief items, such as age, gender, occupation, location, social network site (SNS) focused on hospitality exchange. where one grew up, and since when one has been a member Members can offer to host couchsurfers at their home or of the community; (2) free-length verbal descriptions of request to stay as guests. While it is possible to solely host one’s preferred ways of participating in the Couchsurfing or surf, over time members tend to engage in both ways [6]. community, one’s couchsurfing experiences, as well as As a rule, couchsurfing involves no monetary exchange as interests, and (3) photos. The profile contains an SNS-style stays take place with the broad goal of promoting list of Couchsurfing.org friends, and finally but crucially, intercultural experiences and understanding between people the references one has received, categorized in a table both of different backgrounds [6]. according to whether the feedback is positive, neutral, or negative, and in terms of whether it has been given by Prior research on Couchsurfing.org has examined practices visitors, hosts, or people met while traveling. Although it is of writing references, the small testimonials that guests and technically possible to make a profile for representing hosts post to one another after visits [13] and disclosing ‘several people’, the structure of the profile is best suited information in online profiles [8]. Accumulating references for individual users. to the profile is an important way for profile owners to establish a trustworthy reputation within the network. As for hosting, profiles require members to indicate Notions of reciprocity and trust [6,9] have attracted whether they have ‘a couch’ available, whether they can scholarly attention, as trust has been deemed crucial for host at the moment, and, if so, provide more information on letting a stranger sleep in one’s home or for staying on the type of accommodation they have to offer. A free text someone else’s couch. Recent studies [1,3,14] have field titled ‘Couch Information’ is used not just to describe considered how people negotiate access to personalized the space but also to communicate expectations and spaces and adopt roles that help achieve comfortable restrictions, such as the appropriate length of stay or the interactions. maximum number of surfers welcome at a time. The main emphasis in prior work has been on dynamics of MATERIAL AND METHOD host-guest relationships, accompanied with the occasional This paper presents results from a qualitative case study remark that encounters do not necessarily take place in consisting of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with host-guest dyads: people often share their homes with altogether sixteen people (eight women and eight men) others who may get involved in hosting more or less from eight households of more than one people voluntarily. This paper examines the dynamics of hosting (heterosexual couples, housemates, and a heterosexual together with other household members from the family with a child) who offer to host couchsurfers. perspective of account sharing. Couchsurfing.org embraces Participants’ ages ranged from 10 to 56 years, with most account sharing in that whenever new members set up a participants in their mid to late twenties. One of the couples profile on the site, they are given an opportunity to indicate was initially interviewed with the purpose of piloting the that the profile represents ‘several people’. The opportunity interview procedure. Since no major changes were made to to create a profile that explicitly represents more than one the procedure after the pilots, it was deemed appropriate to person makes the site an opportune location for examining include transcripts of these interviews in the analysis. how small groups (here, households of more than one Apart from pilot interviewees (contacted through the person) negotiate presenting themselves and their home author’s colleagues), all interviewees were recruited through a shared account and through offline interactions through direct messages to Couchsurfing profile owners resulting from engaging others via the service. whose profiles were listed as ‘several people’. The Next to maintaining a profile, accounts allow members to interviews took place in two metropolitan areas in the USA send and receive requests for a stay (‘CouchRequests’), in July and August 2012. They were conducted in the send private messages to others, and to write and receive participants’ homes (apart from the over-the-phone pilot references – small testimonials that hosts and guests write interviews). The interviews ranged from 30 to 70 minutes in to evaluate one another. It is customary for both guests and length.