Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces Glossary · UGC Platforms

ABC test: a classification test that presumes employment unless the hiring entity proves the worker is free from its control, does work outside its usual course of business and has an independent trade of the same kind, as California's AB 5 adopted (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Account renting: letting someone who couldn't pass onboarding work under another worker's account, countered with liveness re-checks when going online and during work (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Actual cash value (ACV): the value basis a total loss is paid on, up to the plan's cap ($300,000 at Outdoorsy, $200,000 at Turo) (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Add-on: an optional extra a guest can add to a booking, such as a bike rack, generator, linens or delivery, defined on the listing and priced in the quote (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Advance notice: the listing rule for how soon before the start a booking may be made, such as same-day, one day or three days (Availability & Booking).
AirCover: Airbnb's protection brand: for guests, rebooking or a refund when the host cancels, can't be reached or the listing is significantly different; for hosts, damage protection as a guaranty plus liability insurance (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Algorithmic management: directing, monitoring and deciding about workers through automated systems, which the EU Platform Work Directive limits and requires to be disclosed, overseen and explained (Gig Work & Worker Law).
All-in price: the displayed total including every mandatory fee the business knows and can calculate, shown more prominently than other pricing information (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Appraisal: the valuation of vehicle damage: a repair facility's estimate reviewed by an appraiser (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Asset eligibility: the per-listing check of the thing offered (value, age, title, registration, inspection, recalls, anti-theft), with rules set mostly by the insurer or protection plan (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Asset record: a vehicle or property kept as its own record (VIN, year, class, value, title, lienholder) independent of any listing, so its history survives a relist or a change of host (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Authenticity Guarantee: eBay's program routing luxury goods and collectibles through an authenticator before they reach the buyer, turning a dispute into a pre-delivery check (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Availability-aware search: rental search that returns only listings free for the requested dates by joining text, geography and the calendar, then re-checks the top results against the system of record (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Average-consumer test: DSA Article 6(3): the hosting safe harbor doesn't cover consumer-protection liability when an average consumer would believe the item comes from the platform itself (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Background check: a consumer report on a user, run by some marketplaces for certain users, carrying notice, consent and adverse action duties in the US when used to deny someone (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Blocked property: property of a sanctioned person in a US person's possession, frozen rather than seized and reported to OFAC within 10 business days (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Bookability: the listing's own status (active, snoozed, sold out, retired), kept separate from the content item's visibility (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Booking change: a modification (extension, shortening, delivery, added driver) recorded as a request priced against the frozen quote, agreed by the right party and applied in one transaction (Availability & Booking).
Booking participant: each driver or guest on a booking, verified individually before the trip, the list that coverage checks read (Availability & Booking).
Booking restriction: a published rule narrowing what a risky guest may book, such as Airbnb's limit on local entire-home bookings by US and Canadian guests under 25 (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Booking states: the booking vocabulary from requested and pending payment through confirmed, in progress and completed, or ending cancelled, declined or expired (Availability & Booking).
Booking window: the listing rule for how far ahead the calendar opens to bookings (Availability & Booking).
Buyer protection fee: a mandatory fee charged to the buyer that funds refunds for lost, damaged or not-as-described items, as Vinted charges for purchases from non-professional sellers (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
California Honest Pricing Law: SB 478, effective July 1, 2024, making it unlawful for most businesses to advertise a price that leaves out mandatory fees, other than government charges and reasonable shipping (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Cancellation policy catalog: the platform-written set of named, time-based refund schedules (Flexible, Moderate, Firm, Strict and so on) a host chooses from, versioned and frozen on each booking (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Car sharing period: the statutory period that begins and ends at defined events (the booking's start, the handoff, the return), during which coverage must be primary and records kept (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Care, custody and control coverage: the part of a pet sitter's liability insurance that covers the client's pets and property in the sitter's care, which general liability alone doesn't (Services Marketplaces).
Case lifecycle: the shared shape of guarantee and dispute cases: contact the other side, wait, escalate, decide, remedy, appeal (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Cash-out: a host booking their own listing with stolen cards, collecting the payout and disappearing before the chargebacks arrive (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Claim: a request by one side, usually the host, for money for a loss tied to a booking, such as damage, theft, total loss, cleaning, usage or liability (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Claim window: the filing deadline for a claim, measured from the trip's end and set by the protection in force at booking, such as 48 hours at Outdoorsy or 14 days at Airbnb (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Closed to arrival or departure: a listing rule allowing pickups or returns only on certain days (Availability & Booking).
Cold-start boost: a temporary ranking lift for new listings, which have no reviews or bookings yet, expiring by age or first bookings and measured like any feature (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Collusion: a host and guest agreeing on a fake claim or a fake non-return to collect from the platform's protection or an insurer (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Compliance by design (DSA Article 31): the duty to build the listing interface so traders can give the pre-contractual and product-safety information EU law requires, checked with best efforts before the listing goes live (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Constructive cancellation: a listing grossly different from its description (a double booking, a substituted property) treated as a host cancellation (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Contact detection: detection of phone numbers, emails, links and handles in messages, including obfuscated ones and text inside images, so they can be blocked, masked or flagged (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Continuous monitoring: rerunning a provider's criminal record searches on a schedule (Checkr's product reruns every 30 days) under consent that covers it, with each new record taken through pre-adverse and adverse action (Services Marketplaces).
Contractual reimbursement: a damage protection product written as a contract to reimburse rather than an insurance policy, such as Turo's host plans, which needs no producer license unless a regulator treats it as insurance (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Counterparty response: the other side's turn on a claim before review, with a deadline and three exits: accept, dispute or no response (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Custom quote: a priced offer a host sends a guest for specific dates, accepted instantly, created as a booking in the requested state with its own expiry (Availability & Booking).
DAC7 onboarding fields: the seller data DAC7 requires (name, address, date of birth, TIN, VAT number, financial account, and for rentals the property's address), collected at onboarding because vehicle and property rentals have no small-seller exclusion (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Decline reason: a fixed-list reason a host gives for declining a request, each with a consequence such as a calendar task or a counted metric (Availability & Booking).
Delivery radius: the distance a host will deliver an asset, which makes a listing a search candidate in places it isn't parked (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Demand rerouting: turning a guest's unfulfilled or declined request into invitations to similar available hosts, as Outdoorsy's Smart Match does (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Deposit hold: a card authorization placed shortly before a rental, released if nothing goes wrong and partly captured if something does; in practice a sequence of authorizations (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Deposit waiver: a flat fee charged at booking in place of a deposit hold, buying the deductible down to a covered amount, with its own exclusions and version (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Digital key exchange: Outdoorsy's in-app handoff: rental contract signed, timestamped and geotagged photos, pre-existing damage tagged and readings recorded, repeated at return (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Display class: each quote line's classification as mandatory, optional, government or contingent, from which the displayed all-in total is computed (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Disruption activation: a record that switches on an extenuating-circumstances policy for an area and time range, letting qualifying bookings cancel without host penalties (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Drip pricing: showing a base price and adding mandatory fees at checkout, the practice all-in price rules prohibit (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Driver eligibility: the protection plan's conditions on who may drive (age, license class, verification), checked before pickup, with unverified drivers having no damage coverage (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Duplicate listing detection: matching photo hashes, normalized addresses, VINs and text to find the same property or vehicle under two hosts (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Dynamic pricing recommendation: an opt-in tool that sets or suggests prices within host-set bounds, logged with its model version and outcome and never changing confirmed bookings (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Engaged time: under Proposition 22, the time from accepting a rideshare or delivery request to completing it, the clock the California earnings floor is computed on (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Evidence photo: a handoff photo captured in the platform's app with device time, location, server receipt time and a capture hash, never stripped of metadata or edited (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Excess coverage: coverage that pays only after the guest's own insurance, becoming primary only when there is none; cheaper for the platform and slower for everyone (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Extenuating circumstances: events beyond anyone's control (declared emergencies, evacuations, natural disasters) under which the platform overrides cancellation policies, as in Airbnb's Major Disruptive Events Policy (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Fake listing: a listing for a place or vehicle that isn't for rent or doesn't exist, typically priced too low with an absent owner (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Fee program: the versioned terms that answer who pays a marketplace fee, on what base, at what rate (tiers, floors, caps) and under which program, resolved at booking (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
First-dollar backstop: the car sharing law rule that the program's insurance pays from the first dollar when the owner's or driver's coverage has lapsed or is inadequate (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Frozen quote: the booking's price lines (who pays, who earns, display class, refundability) computed once and never recomputed, with post-trip charges added as separate lines (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024, banning fake reviews, sentiment-conditioned incentives, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled review sites and review suppression (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: 16 CFR Part 464, effective May 12, 2025, requiring all-in prices for live-event tickets and short-term lodging, including vacation rentals (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Grace period: a short window after booking in which a guest can cancel for a full refund, such as 24 hours when the trip is at least 7 days away (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Guarantee program: the platform's promise of a remedy when the other side fails, with a scope, a precondition such as paying on the platform, a waiting period, a deadline and a decision (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Guaranty: a damage protection promise that is neither a waiver nor insurance, such as Airbnb's host damage protection up to $3 million (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Guest protection plan: a per-trip product setting the guest's maximum responsibility for damage, such as Turo's Premier, Standard and Minimum plans (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Handoff: the moment control of the asset changes, which proves its condition, records the readings that price the trip and marks the start or end of the coverage period (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
High-volume seller: under INFORM, a seller with 200 or more sales of new or unused consumer products and $5,000 or more in revenue in any 12 months of the previous 24, computed from on-platform sales (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Hijacked listing: a real listing's photos and description copied by a scammer who swaps in their own contact details (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Host block: days a host closes on the calendar for personal use, maintenance or any reason, stored as occupancy (Availability & Booking).
Host cancellation fee: the penalty a host pays for cancelling a confirmed booking, at Airbnb 10%, 25% or 50% of the reservation by timing, minimum $50, withheld from later payouts (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Host plan tier: a host protection level that trades take rate for risk, such as Turo's plans keeping 70%, 80% or 90% of the trip price against damage responsibility of $250, $1,500 or $2,750 (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Host-only fee: a single platform fee charged to the host so the guest sees one price that already includes the platform's cut, such as Airbnb's 15.5% for most hosts (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Identity graph: a graph of accounts linked by shared devices, payment instruments, documents, addresses and payout accounts, used to resolve identity and find linked accounts (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Imported block: days closed by an external calendar feed, with no guest, price or contract on this marketplace (Availability & Booking).
INFORM Consumers Act: the US law (15 U.S.C. 45f), effective June 27, 2023, requiring marketplaces to collect, verify and in some cases disclose high-volume sellers' data, with a reporting channel on their listings (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Instant book: booking confirmed at checkout under rules the host set, without the host approving each guest (Availability & Booking).
Instant book eligibility: the host-chosen conditions on guest and trip (trip type, verification, review history, driver age, length) under which a booking confirms without approval, frozen on the booking (Availability & Booking).
Insurance period (rideshare): the app state that sets a driver's required coverage: waiting for a match (Period 1), accepted and en route (Period 2), or with a passenger (Period 3) (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Insurance producer: anyone who sells, solicits or negotiates insurance, licensed by each US state, which is why a marketplace offering coverage at checkout holds licenses or sells through a licensed firm (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Leakage: a guest and host who meet on the platform and transact without it, costing the take rate and the guest's protections (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Lienholder: a lender with a lien on a financed vehicle, who may forbid sharing, must be noticed before listing under some car sharing laws, and is paid first on a total loss (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Limited payment collection agent: the role a marketplace claims when it collects payment on the host's behalf without being a party to the rental contract, as Outdoorsy's terms describe (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Linked accounts: accounts tied to one operator by shared evidence, read to make penalties stick and to find self-dealing, rings and payout concentration (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Listing quality score: the platform's versioned, explained estimate of how likely a listing is to deliver a good trip, built from content completeness, outcome history and host behavior (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Loss of use: the bookings a host loses while a vehicle is repaired, excluded by Outdoorsy's and Turo's host protection and included in Airbnb's for stays (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Major Disruptive Events Policy: Airbnb's override for declared emergencies, travel restrictions, military action, prolonged outages and unforeseeable disasters, letting guests cancel for a refund and hosts without fees (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Marketplace facilitator: a marketplace that state law makes calculate, collect and remit sales or rental tax on third-party sales (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Mass arbitration: a law firm filing thousands of individual arbitration demands at once, each carrying fees the company pays, now handled by special provider rules (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Material right: an option, such as accumulated reward points, that gives a customer something they wouldn't get without the purchase; part of the price is deferred and recognized when the points are redeemed or expire (Services Marketplaces).
Merchant of record: the party whose name is on the card statement and who refunds and absorbs chargebacks, which decides who earns each fee line and who owes the tax (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Money Back Guarantee: eBay's guarantee for items not received or not as described, with a seller response period, eBay stepping in after it, and no chargeback allowed for the same issue (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Not as described: a goods claim that the item received doesn't match the listing, judged against the listing revision the buyer purchased (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Not-a-party posture: marketplace terms that put the rental or sale contract between the two users, a position tested by the DSA, airports, car sharing laws and tax authorities (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Occupancy: every claim on a listing's time (bookings, holds, host blocks, imported blocks, buffers, eligibility closures) kept in one table under one exclusion constraint (Availability & Booking).
Onboarding gate: one of five separate checks a supplier passes (identity, payout, tax, asset, content), each with its own state, validity and the act it blocks (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
One-remedy rule: a guarantee's ban on also taking a chargeback for the same issue, enforced by linking the case, the refund and any dispute on the payment (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
PACFA (Pet Animal Care Facilities Act): Colorado's licensing law for pet facilities; its rules treat anyone housing more than three pet animals at one time for pay as a boarding facility (Services Marketplaces).
Pay floor check: the per-worker, per-period comparison of earnings counted under a minimum pay standard against its floor, with any top-up paid as its own line (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Payment diversion: persuading a guest to pay outside the platform, often through a link to a fake copy of its checkout, where every platform protection ends (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Peer-to-peer car sharing law: a state statute, such as Washington's SHB 1389, regulating the car sharing program directly: primary insurance during the sharing period, disclosures, lienholder notice, records and recalls (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Platform-initiated cancellation: a cancellation by the marketplace itself, such as during a wind-down, refunded in full with no penalty on either side (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Post-trip charge: an amount discovered after return (damage beyond the deposit, cleaning, fuel, tolls, overages) charged to the card on file with consent at booking, evidence and notice (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Preparation time: the buffer before and after each booking for cleaning and checks, stored inside the occupied range so the database can enforce it (Availability & Booking).
Presumption of employment: Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2024/2831: a platform relationship is presumed to be employment when facts indicate direction and control, and the platform must prove otherwise (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Primary coverage: coverage that pays first, before the guest's own insurance; car sharing laws require that whichever coverage applies during the sharing period is primary (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Private individual: a supplier not acting for trade, business or profession, outside most consumer law, so buyers rely on the platform's guarantee (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Process arbitrator: under mass arbitration rules, the arbitrator who handles non-merits issues before individual merits arbitrators decide each claim (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Product compliance fields: typed per-category listing fields for EU product-safety information, checked before publishing and sampled against illegal-product databases (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Promotion funder: the party whose earnings a discount reduces (the platform or the host), recorded on each promotion line with its base and stacking rule (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Proposition 22: California's 2020 initiative making app-based drivers independent contractors while the platform doesn't set their hours or require acceptance, in exchange for an earnings floor and benefits (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Protection stack: the layers that can pay a rental loss (deposit or waiver, guest plan, host plan or guaranty, liability insurance, physical damage insurance, each party's own insurance), each with a legal form (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Readings: odometer, generator hours, fuel or charge level captured with a photo at both handoffs, used to price usage and as claim evidence (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Rebooking: the guest's replacement booking on a comparable listing after a host cancellation, linked to the cancelled one with the price difference funded by the platform (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Recall feed: a periodic check of every listed vehicle against a safety recall source, which some car sharing laws require before a vehicle is made available (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Recommender transparency: DSA Article 27's duty to set out a ranking's main parameters and users' options in plain language in the terms (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Referral agency exemption: California Labor Code 2777, which takes referral agencies for listed services, including animal services, dog walking and dog grooming but not in-home care, out of the ABC test if the provider sets their own rates and terms (Services Marketplaces).
Reimbursement-only settlement: paying a claim only against documented repairs rather than an estimate, used where fraud is suspected (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Remitter: the party a tax rule makes responsible for paying a tax line to the authority, the platform as facilitator or the host (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Request to book: a booking the host accepts or declines within a window, with payment authorized at request and the request expiring if unanswered (Availability & Booking).
Reservation risk score: an estimate of the chance a booking ends in a loss (fraud, misuse, damage, non-return), computed at several checkpoints from trip and payment features (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Review coercion: tying a deposit, refund or discount to a review's content, a policy violation detectable in messages and potentially a violation of the FTC reviews rule (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Review suppression: removing or deterring honest reviews through false accusations, intimidation or unfounded legal threats, prohibited by the FTC reviews rule (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Roadside assistance: towing, tire, battery, lockout and fuel help bought from a provider and attached to the trip, recorded with its program and tier (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
SDN screening: screening hosts, sellers, guests and payees against OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals list at onboarding, on changes, on list updates and before payouts, with potential matches reviewed (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Self-certification (trader): the statement DSA Article 30(1)(e) requires from a trader, committing to offer only products or services that comply with EU law, collected before they can sell to EU consumers and shown to buyers; distinct from a creator's ad-suitability self-certification (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Self-dealing: a host booking their own listing from a second account to inflate reviews or cash out stolen cards, visible as guest and host linked by device or payment (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Seller performance standards: eBay's seller metrics computed from transaction defects rather than feedback, which negative or neutral feedback doesn't affect (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Settlement order: the sequence a settled claim is paid from: the deposit, the guest's card on file, the guest's plan, the host's plan or guaranty, an insurer, then the guest's own insurer (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Simultaneous reveal: holding each side's review sealed until both have submitted or the window closes, so neither can retaliate against what the other wrote (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Split payment: a booking paid in installments, such as a 50% deposit with the balance charged automatically 30 days before departure (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Status program: a badge and perks for hosts or sellers who meet published thresholds on responsiveness, rating, reliability and volume, evaluated on a schedule, such as Superhost (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Subrogation: the payer of a host's loss stepping into the host's claim against the guest to recover from the guest, their insurer or collections (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Supplement: an addition to a repair estimate when the repair uncovers more damage than first shown, reviewed by an appraiser (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Supply culling: retiring listings that underperform or generate claims, with a reason, rather than deleting them (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Supply sanction: an automatic penalty on a host for cancellations or unresponsiveness, such as Outdoorsy pausing instant book for 45 days, modeled as a penalty rather than a setting change (Availability & Booking).
Total loss: a loss where repair costs approach the vehicle's value, paid at actual cash value up to the plan's cap with the lienholder paid first (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Trader: under the DSA, someone acting for purposes of their trade, business, craft or profession, which brings collection, verification and disclosure duties (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Trader traceability: DSA Article 30's duty to collect a trader's identity, contact, payment and registration data and a compliance self-certification before they offer to EU consumers, verify it with best efforts and keep it six months after the relationship ends (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Transaction thread: a marketplace conversation tied to a listing and, once booked, a booking, with immutable messages kept as the record of what was promised (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Usage charge: a price known only after the trip (miles, generator hours, fuel, late return), computed from rates frozen at booking and readings taken at handoff, with a deadline (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Utilization rate: in New York City's delivery worker rule, an app's total trip time over trip plus on-call time across its workers, which decides whether it may use the alternative pay method (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Visibility: the content item's state for a listing (draft, pending review, published, hidden, removed, deleted), kept separate from bookability (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Visit: one occurrence of a services booking, with its caregiver, check-in and check-out, route and report, used as the unit of proof and of payout (Services Marketplaces).

ABC test: a classification test that presumes employment unless the hiring entity proves the worker is free from its control, does work outside its usual course of business and has an independent trade of the same kind, as California's AB 5 adopted (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Account renting: letting someone who couldn't pass onboarding work under another worker's account, countered with liveness re-checks when going online and during work (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Actual cash value (ACV): the value basis a total loss is paid on, up to the plan's cap ($300,000 at Outdoorsy, $200,000 at Turo) (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Add-on: an optional extra a guest can add to a booking, such as a bike rack, generator, linens or delivery, defined on the listing and priced in the quote (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Advance notice: the listing rule for how soon before the start a booking may be made, such as same-day, one day or three days (Availability & Booking).
AirCover: Airbnb's protection brand: for guests, rebooking or a refund when the host cancels, can't be reached or the listing is significantly different; for hosts, damage protection as a guaranty plus liability insurance (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Algorithmic management: directing, monitoring and deciding about workers through automated systems, which the EU Platform Work Directive limits and requires to be disclosed, overseen and explained (Gig Work & Worker Law).
All-in price: the displayed total including every mandatory fee the business knows and can calculate, shown more prominently than other pricing information (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Appraisal: the valuation of vehicle damage: a repair facility's estimate reviewed by an appraiser (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Asset eligibility: the per-listing check of the thing offered (value, age, title, registration, inspection, recalls, anti-theft), with rules set mostly by the insurer or protection plan (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Asset record: a vehicle or property kept as its own record (VIN, year, class, value, title, lienholder) independent of any listing, so its history survives a relist or a change of host (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Authenticity Guarantee: eBay's program routing luxury goods and collectibles through an authenticator before they reach the buyer, turning a dispute into a pre-delivery check (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Availability-aware search: rental search that returns only listings free for the requested dates by joining text, geography and the calendar, then re-checks the top results against the system of record (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Average-consumer test: DSA Article 6(3): the hosting safe harbor doesn't cover consumer-protection liability when an average consumer would believe the item comes from the platform itself (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Background check: a consumer report on a user, run by some marketplaces for certain users, carrying notice, consent and adverse action duties in the US when used to deny someone (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Blocked property: property of a sanctioned person in a US person's possession, frozen rather than seized and reported to OFAC within 10 business days (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Bookability: the listing's own status (active, snoozed, sold out, retired), kept separate from the content item's visibility (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Booking change: a modification (extension, shortening, delivery, added driver) recorded as a request priced against the frozen quote, agreed by the right party and applied in one transaction (Availability & Booking).
Booking participant: each driver or guest on a booking, verified individually before the trip, the list that coverage checks read (Availability & Booking).
Booking restriction: a published rule narrowing what a risky guest may book, such as Airbnb's limit on local entire-home bookings by US and Canadian guests under 25 (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Booking states: the booking vocabulary from requested and pending payment through confirmed, in progress and completed, or ending cancelled, declined or expired (Availability & Booking).
Booking window: the listing rule for how far ahead the calendar opens to bookings (Availability & Booking).
Buyer protection fee: a mandatory fee charged to the buyer that funds refunds for lost, damaged or not-as-described items, as Vinted charges for purchases from non-professional sellers (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
California Honest Pricing Law: SB 478, effective July 1, 2024, making it unlawful for most businesses to advertise a price that leaves out mandatory fees, other than government charges and reasonable shipping (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Cancellation policy catalog: the platform-written set of named, time-based refund schedules (Flexible, Moderate, Firm, Strict and so on) a host chooses from, versioned and frozen on each booking (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Car sharing period: the statutory period that begins and ends at defined events (the booking's start, the handoff, the return), during which coverage must be primary and records kept (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Care, custody and control coverage: the part of a pet sitter's liability insurance that covers the client's pets and property in the sitter's care, which general liability alone doesn't (Services Marketplaces).
Case lifecycle: the shared shape of guarantee and dispute cases: contact the other side, wait, escalate, decide, remedy, appeal (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Cash-out: a host booking their own listing with stolen cards, collecting the payout and disappearing before the chargebacks arrive (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Claim: a request by one side, usually the host, for money for a loss tied to a booking, such as damage, theft, total loss, cleaning, usage or liability (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Claim window: the filing deadline for a claim, measured from the trip's end and set by the protection in force at booking, such as 48 hours at Outdoorsy or 14 days at Airbnb (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Closed to arrival or departure: a listing rule allowing pickups or returns only on certain days (Availability & Booking).
Cold-start boost: a temporary ranking lift for new listings, which have no reviews or bookings yet, expiring by age or first bookings and measured like any feature (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Collusion: a host and guest agreeing on a fake claim or a fake non-return to collect from the platform's protection or an insurer (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Compliance by design (DSA Article 31): the duty to build the listing interface so traders can give the pre-contractual and product-safety information EU law requires, checked with best efforts before the listing goes live (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Constructive cancellation: a listing grossly different from its description (a double booking, a substituted property) treated as a host cancellation (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Contact detection: detection of phone numbers, emails, links and handles in messages, including obfuscated ones and text inside images, so they can be blocked, masked or flagged (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Continuous monitoring: rerunning a provider's criminal record searches on a schedule (Checkr's product reruns every 30 days) under consent that covers it, with each new record taken through pre-adverse and adverse action (Services Marketplaces).
Contractual reimbursement: a damage protection product written as a contract to reimburse rather than an insurance policy, such as Turo's host plans, which needs no producer license unless a regulator treats it as insurance (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Counterparty response: the other side's turn on a claim before review, with a deadline and three exits: accept, dispute or no response (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Custom quote: a priced offer a host sends a guest for specific dates, accepted instantly, created as a booking in the requested state with its own expiry (Availability & Booking).
DAC7 onboarding fields: the seller data DAC7 requires (name, address, date of birth, TIN, VAT number, financial account, and for rentals the property's address), collected at onboarding because vehicle and property rentals have no small-seller exclusion (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Decline reason: a fixed-list reason a host gives for declining a request, each with a consequence such as a calendar task or a counted metric (Availability & Booking).
Delivery radius: the distance a host will deliver an asset, which makes a listing a search candidate in places it isn't parked (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Demand rerouting: turning a guest's unfulfilled or declined request into invitations to similar available hosts, as Outdoorsy's Smart Match does (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Deposit hold: a card authorization placed shortly before a rental, released if nothing goes wrong and partly captured if something does; in practice a sequence of authorizations (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Deposit waiver: a flat fee charged at booking in place of a deposit hold, buying the deductible down to a covered amount, with its own exclusions and version (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Digital key exchange: Outdoorsy's in-app handoff: rental contract signed, timestamped and geotagged photos, pre-existing damage tagged and readings recorded, repeated at return (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Display class: each quote line's classification as mandatory, optional, government or contingent, from which the displayed all-in total is computed (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Disruption activation: a record that switches on an extenuating-circumstances policy for an area and time range, letting qualifying bookings cancel without host penalties (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Drip pricing: showing a base price and adding mandatory fees at checkout, the practice all-in price rules prohibit (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Driver eligibility: the protection plan's conditions on who may drive (age, license class, verification), checked before pickup, with unverified drivers having no damage coverage (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Duplicate listing detection: matching photo hashes, normalized addresses, VINs and text to find the same property or vehicle under two hosts (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Dynamic pricing recommendation: an opt-in tool that sets or suggests prices within host-set bounds, logged with its model version and outcome and never changing confirmed bookings (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Engaged time: under Proposition 22, the time from accepting a rideshare or delivery request to completing it, the clock the California earnings floor is computed on (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Evidence photo: a handoff photo captured in the platform's app with device time, location, server receipt time and a capture hash, never stripped of metadata or edited (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Excess coverage: coverage that pays only after the guest's own insurance, becoming primary only when there is none; cheaper for the platform and slower for everyone (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Extenuating circumstances: events beyond anyone's control (declared emergencies, evacuations, natural disasters) under which the platform overrides cancellation policies, as in Airbnb's Major Disruptive Events Policy (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Fake listing: a listing for a place or vehicle that isn't for rent or doesn't exist, typically priced too low with an absent owner (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Fee program: the versioned terms that answer who pays a marketplace fee, on what base, at what rate (tiers, floors, caps) and under which program, resolved at booking (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
First-dollar backstop: the car sharing law rule that the program's insurance pays from the first dollar when the owner's or driver's coverage has lapsed or is inadequate (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Frozen quote: the booking's price lines (who pays, who earns, display class, refundability) computed once and never recomputed, with post-trip charges added as separate lines (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024, banning fake reviews, sentiment-conditioned incentives, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled review sites and review suppression (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: 16 CFR Part 464, effective May 12, 2025, requiring all-in prices for live-event tickets and short-term lodging, including vacation rentals (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Grace period: a short window after booking in which a guest can cancel for a full refund, such as 24 hours when the trip is at least 7 days away (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Guarantee program: the platform's promise of a remedy when the other side fails, with a scope, a precondition such as paying on the platform, a waiting period, a deadline and a decision (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Guaranty: a damage protection promise that is neither a waiver nor insurance, such as Airbnb's host damage protection up to $3 million (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Guest protection plan: a per-trip product setting the guest's maximum responsibility for damage, such as Turo's Premier, Standard and Minimum plans (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Handoff: the moment control of the asset changes, which proves its condition, records the readings that price the trip and marks the start or end of the coverage period (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
High-volume seller: under INFORM, a seller with 200 or more sales of new or unused consumer products and $5,000 or more in revenue in any 12 months of the previous 24, computed from on-platform sales (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Hijacked listing: a real listing's photos and description copied by a scammer who swaps in their own contact details (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Host block: days a host closes on the calendar for personal use, maintenance or any reason, stored as occupancy (Availability & Booking).
Host cancellation fee: the penalty a host pays for cancelling a confirmed booking, at Airbnb 10%, 25% or 50% of the reservation by timing, minimum $50, withheld from later payouts (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Host plan tier: a host protection level that trades take rate for risk, such as Turo's plans keeping 70%, 80% or 90% of the trip price against damage responsibility of $250, $1,500 or $2,750 (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Host-only fee: a single platform fee charged to the host so the guest sees one price that already includes the platform's cut, such as Airbnb's 15.5% for most hosts (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Identity graph: a graph of accounts linked by shared devices, payment instruments, documents, addresses and payout accounts, used to resolve identity and find linked accounts (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Imported block: days closed by an external calendar feed, with no guest, price or contract on this marketplace (Availability & Booking).
INFORM Consumers Act: the US law (15 U.S.C. 45f), effective June 27, 2023, requiring marketplaces to collect, verify and in some cases disclose high-volume sellers' data, with a reporting channel on their listings (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Instant book: booking confirmed at checkout under rules the host set, without the host approving each guest (Availability & Booking).
Instant book eligibility: the host-chosen conditions on guest and trip (trip type, verification, review history, driver age, length) under which a booking confirms without approval, frozen on the booking (Availability & Booking).
Insurance period (rideshare): the app state that sets a driver's required coverage: waiting for a match (Period 1), accepted and en route (Period 2), or with a passenger (Period 3) (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Insurance producer: anyone who sells, solicits or negotiates insurance, licensed by each US state, which is why a marketplace offering coverage at checkout holds licenses or sells through a licensed firm (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Leakage: a guest and host who meet on the platform and transact without it, costing the take rate and the guest's protections (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Lienholder: a lender with a lien on a financed vehicle, who may forbid sharing, must be noticed before listing under some car sharing laws, and is paid first on a total loss (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Limited payment collection agent: the role a marketplace claims when it collects payment on the host's behalf without being a party to the rental contract, as Outdoorsy's terms describe (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Linked accounts: accounts tied to one operator by shared evidence, read to make penalties stick and to find self-dealing, rings and payout concentration (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Listing quality score: the platform's versioned, explained estimate of how likely a listing is to deliver a good trip, built from content completeness, outcome history and host behavior (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Loss of use: the bookings a host loses while a vehicle is repaired, excluded by Outdoorsy's and Turo's host protection and included in Airbnb's for stays (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Major Disruptive Events Policy: Airbnb's override for declared emergencies, travel restrictions, military action, prolonged outages and unforeseeable disasters, letting guests cancel for a refund and hosts without fees (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Marketplace facilitator: a marketplace that state law makes calculate, collect and remit sales or rental tax on third-party sales (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Mass arbitration: a law firm filing thousands of individual arbitration demands at once, each carrying fees the company pays, now handled by special provider rules (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Material right: an option, such as accumulated reward points, that gives a customer something they wouldn't get without the purchase; part of the price is deferred and recognized when the points are redeemed or expire (Services Marketplaces).
Merchant of record: the party whose name is on the card statement and who refunds and absorbs chargebacks, which decides who earns each fee line and who owes the tax (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Money Back Guarantee: eBay's guarantee for items not received or not as described, with a seller response period, eBay stepping in after it, and no chargeback allowed for the same issue (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Not as described: a goods claim that the item received doesn't match the listing, judged against the listing revision the buyer purchased (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Not-a-party posture: marketplace terms that put the rental or sale contract between the two users, a position tested by the DSA, airports, car sharing laws and tax authorities (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Occupancy: every claim on a listing's time (bookings, holds, host blocks, imported blocks, buffers, eligibility closures) kept in one table under one exclusion constraint (Availability & Booking).
Onboarding gate: one of five separate checks a supplier passes (identity, payout, tax, asset, content), each with its own state, validity and the act it blocks (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
One-remedy rule: a guarantee's ban on also taking a chargeback for the same issue, enforced by linking the case, the refund and any dispute on the payment (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
PACFA (Pet Animal Care Facilities Act): Colorado's licensing law for pet facilities; its rules treat anyone housing more than three pet animals at one time for pay as a boarding facility (Services Marketplaces).
Pay floor check: the per-worker, per-period comparison of earnings counted under a minimum pay standard against its floor, with any top-up paid as its own line (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Payment diversion: persuading a guest to pay outside the platform, often through a link to a fake copy of its checkout, where every platform protection ends (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Peer-to-peer car sharing law: a state statute, such as Washington's SHB 1389, regulating the car sharing program directly: primary insurance during the sharing period, disclosures, lienholder notice, records and recalls (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Platform-initiated cancellation: a cancellation by the marketplace itself, such as during a wind-down, refunded in full with no penalty on either side (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Post-trip charge: an amount discovered after return (damage beyond the deposit, cleaning, fuel, tolls, overages) charged to the card on file with consent at booking, evidence and notice (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Preparation time: the buffer before and after each booking for cleaning and checks, stored inside the occupied range so the database can enforce it (Availability & Booking).
Presumption of employment: Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2024/2831: a platform relationship is presumed to be employment when facts indicate direction and control, and the platform must prove otherwise (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Primary coverage: coverage that pays first, before the guest's own insurance; car sharing laws require that whichever coverage applies during the sharing period is primary (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Private individual: a supplier not acting for trade, business or profession, outside most consumer law, so buyers rely on the platform's guarantee (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Process arbitrator: under mass arbitration rules, the arbitrator who handles non-merits issues before individual merits arbitrators decide each claim (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Product compliance fields: typed per-category listing fields for EU product-safety information, checked before publishing and sampled against illegal-product databases (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Promotion funder: the party whose earnings a discount reduces (the platform or the host), recorded on each promotion line with its base and stacking rule (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Proposition 22: California's 2020 initiative making app-based drivers independent contractors while the platform doesn't set their hours or require acceptance, in exchange for an earnings floor and benefits (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Protection stack: the layers that can pay a rental loss (deposit or waiver, guest plan, host plan or guaranty, liability insurance, physical damage insurance, each party's own insurance), each with a legal form (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
Readings: odometer, generator hours, fuel or charge level captured with a photo at both handoffs, used to price usage and as claim evidence (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Rebooking: the guest's replacement booking on a comparable listing after a host cancellation, linked to the cancelled one with the price difference funded by the platform (Cancellations, Guarantees & Disputes).
Recall feed: a periodic check of every listed vehicle against a safety recall source, which some car sharing laws require before a vehicle is made available (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Recommender transparency: DSA Article 27's duty to set out a ranking's main parameters and users' options in plain language in the terms (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Referral agency exemption: California Labor Code 2777, which takes referral agencies for listed services, including animal services, dog walking and dog grooming but not in-home care, out of the ABC test if the provider sets their own rates and terms (Services Marketplaces).
Reimbursement-only settlement: paying a claim only against documented repairs rather than an estimate, used where fraud is suspected (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Remitter: the party a tax rule makes responsible for paying a tax line to the authority, the platform as facilitator or the host (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Request to book: a booking the host accepts or declines within a window, with payment authorized at request and the request expiring if unanswered (Availability & Booking).
Reservation risk score: an estimate of the chance a booking ends in a loss (fraud, misuse, damage, non-return), computed at several checkpoints from trip and payment features (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Review coercion: tying a deposit, refund or discount to a review's content, a policy violation detectable in messages and potentially a violation of the FTC reviews rule (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Review suppression: removing or deterring honest reviews through false accusations, intimidation or unfounded legal threats, prohibited by the FTC reviews rule (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Roadside assistance: towing, tire, battery, lockout and fuel help bought from a provider and attached to the trip, recorded with its program and tier (Deposits, Protection Plans & Insurance).
SDN screening: screening hosts, sellers, guests and payees against OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals list at onboarding, on changes, on list updates and before payouts, with potential matches reviewed (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Self-certification (trader): the statement DSA Article 30(1)(e) requires from a trader, committing to offer only products or services that comply with EU law, collected before they can sell to EU consumers and shown to buyers; distinct from a creator's ad-suitability self-certification (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Self-dealing: a host booking their own listing from a second account to inflate reviews or cash out stolen cards, visible as guest and host linked by device or payment (Marketplace Fraud & Risk).
Seller performance standards: eBay's seller metrics computed from transaction defects rather than feedback, which negative or neutral feedback doesn't affect (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Settlement order: the sequence a settled claim is paid from: the deposit, the guest's card on file, the guest's plan, the host's plan or guaranty, an insurer, then the guest's own insurer (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Simultaneous reveal: holding each side's review sealed until both have submitted or the window closes, so neither can retaliate against what the other wrote (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Split payment: a booking paid in installments, such as a 50% deposit with the balance charged automatically 30 days before departure (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Status program: a badge and perks for hosts or sellers who meet published thresholds on responsiveness, rating, reliability and volume, evaluated on a schedule, such as Superhost (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Subrogation: the payer of a host's loss stepping into the host's claim against the guest to recover from the guest, their insurer or collections (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Supplement: an addition to a repair estimate when the repair uncovers more damage than first shown, reviewed by an appraiser (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Supply culling: retiring listings that underperform or generate claims, with a reason, rather than deleting them (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Supply sanction: an automatic penalty on a host for cancellations or unresponsiveness, such as Outdoorsy pausing instant book for 45 days, modeled as a penalty rather than a setting change (Availability & Booking).
Total loss: a loss where repair costs approach the vehicle's value, paid at actual cash value up to the plan's cap with the lienholder paid first (Handoffs, Damage & Claims).
Trader: under the DSA, someone acting for purposes of their trade, business, craft or profession, which brings collection, verification and disclosure duties (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Trader traceability: DSA Article 30's duty to collect a trader's identity, contact, payment and registration data and a compliance self-certification before they offer to EU consumers, verify it with best efforts and keep it six months after the relationship ends (Supply Onboarding & Verification).
Transaction thread: a marketplace conversation tied to a listing and, once booked, a booking, with immutable messages kept as the record of what was promised (Messaging, Reviews & Reputation).
Usage charge: a price known only after the trip (miles, generator hours, fuel, late return), computed from rates frozen at booking and readings taken at handoff, with a deadline (Pricing, Fees & All-In Prices).
Utilization rate: in New York City's delivery worker rule, an app's total trip time over trip plus on-call time across its workers, which decides whether it may use the alternative pay method (Gig Work & Worker Law).
Visibility: the content item's state for a listing (draft, pending review, published, hidden, removed, deleted), kept separate from bookability (Listings, Search & Ranking).
Visit: one occurrence of a services booking, with its caregiver, check-in and check-out, route and report, used as the unit of proof and of payout (Services Marketplaces).