Europe's New Rule: The Cure Can't Be Bigger Than the Disease

Vacation Rental Scale-Up · Sep 28, 2026 · 13m

Two European decisions landed roughly 48 hours apart, and on the surface they have nothing to do with each other. Google removed the vacation rentals section from Search across the European Economic Area — the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein — as its own chosen remedy to a Digital Markets Act decision. Then the European Commission proposed the Affordable Housing Act, which would require any city or government restricting short-term rentals for housing reasons to demonstrate the problem first, with at least three years of evidence, and to show that a less drastic option wouldn't…