[HN Gopher] FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving u...
___________________________________________________________________
FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing
personal data
https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...
Author : gnabgib
Score : 216 points
Date : 2026-03-30 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ftc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ftc.gov)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Federal complaint:
| https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-MatchCo...
|
| Proposed settlement:
| https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/MatchGroupAmeri...
| altairprime wrote:
| Do I interpret the settlement proposal correctly that the
| unlawfully-transmitted copies, and any training outcomes derived
| from them, are _not_ ordered purged?
| verdverm wrote:
| I can think of a few federal agencies that need the same
| treatment, Palantir too
| tetromino_ wrote:
| Key quote:
|
| > Even though it did not have any business relationship with
| OkCupid, the third-party data recipient asked the company to
| share large datasets of OkCupid user photos and related data with
| it because OkCupid's founders were financial investors in the
| third party. OkCupid provided the third party with access to
| nearly three million OkCupid user photos as well as location and
| other information without placing any formal or contractual
| restrictions on how the information could be used, the FTC
| alleged.
|
| I wonder what is this third party that the complaint does not
| list by name?
| ImJamal wrote:
| Just guessing, but the third party company did not break a law
| or go against their privacy policy.
|
| Reuters says it is "Clarifai" if you wanted to know.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...
| rose-knuckle17 wrote:
| no. but it seems possible, or even likely, that they used the
| pictures to train targeting for military drones (think
| Project Insight from Captain America:Winter Soldier).
|
| I'm not sure privacy violations are the biggest concern here.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Maybe privacy concerns aren't your biggest concerns, but
| they are for the FTC for a case like this.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > seems possible, or even likely, that they used the
| pictures to train targeting for military drones
|
| Clarifai's usecase is around unstructured image data search
| which is fairly useful in cleansing and less so in
| targeting.
|
| More fundamentally, almost the entire tech industry touched
| Project Maven - it was massive. And that was just 1 of
| multiple initiatives led by the DoD.
|
| And most other great and regional powers like China,
| Russia, Japan, France, India, South Korea, Turkiye, etc
| have all been working on similar projects for a decade.
|
| It doesn't matter what country you live in - no nation will
| leave capabilities on the table. Heck, a highschooler with
| knowledge of OpenCV and the Google Earth API can build
| targeting capabilities similar to what superpowers had a
| decade ago.
|
| It's 2026 - the Ukraine War started in 2014; the Syrian,
| Libyan, and Yemeni Civil Wars in 2011; the Congo War
| reignited in 2015; the Afghan War continued until 2022; the
| Myanmar Civil War reignited in 2021; etc - there has now
| been over a decade of constant development of dual use
| technologies in both conflicts and civilian applications.
|
| Technology has always had a military component - heck, much
| of the "civilian" technologies in the 1990s-2000s were
| refined and tested thanks to Gulf War 1 and the Yugoslav
| Wars.
|
| Or, framed in another manner - the capabilities disclosed
| as part of the Snowden Leaks in 2013 were _already_ in
| production 20 years ago. It is 2026.
|
| There is a sense of starry-eyed idealism amongst a subset
| of techies who didn't seem to realize that technology has
| always been dual use.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm wondering if this means 3 million copyright violations that
| could be litigated in civil court.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > I'm wondering if this means 3 million copyright violations
| that could be litigated in civil court.
|
| Outstanding observation! Class action suit in the making.
| Only lawyers get rich, but still could hurt the offenders
| financially.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| Look, I like the occasional $2 checks in the mail. For now,
| I can buy a candy bar with it.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Here in Canada, even a chocolate bar has now gone up to
| $3 at Walmart
| joering2 wrote:
| I have a gift for you: https://openclassactions.com/
|
| You welcome :)
| hector_vasquez wrote:
| The FTC article links to the federal complaint[0] which names
| the third-party data recipient as Clarifai, Inc.
|
| "In September 2014, the CEO of Clarifai, Inc. e-mailed one of
| OkCupid's founders requesting that Humor Rainbow give Clarifai,
| Inc. (i.e., the Data Recipient) access to large datasets of
| OkCupid photos."
|
| [0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-
| MatchCo...
| realreality wrote:
| So, your dating photos were going to a government contractor
| involved with AI killer drone technology.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarifai#Military_work
| ronsor wrote:
| > Their technology was used by Unilever, Ubisoft, BuzzFeed
|
| And apparently also your deodorant, Assassin's Creed, and
| tabloid rags as well. That's what I call variety.
| tamimio wrote:
| > The platform includes the ability to moderate content,
| perform visual search, visual similarity, and organize media
| collections. It has pre-built recognition models that can
| identify a specific set of concepts like food or travel,
| NSFW, and its general model which can identify a range of
| concepts including objects, ideas, and emotion.[18] It also
| has the ability to create custom models which can identify
| other arbitrary objects such as cars or breeds of dogs.[19]
| The 2018 Model 1.5 with machine-labeled datasets claims to
| recognize up to 11,000 concepts from object detection, as
| well as things like mood or theme.
|
| sooo, why are they after some dating profile pics if the
| model was about "identifying and labeling pictures"? You can
| safely assume their new model will be (already) trained on
| your pictures to crosscheck you on other platforms or
| surveillance system, coupled with accurate positioning, you
| can guess the rest.
| rationalist wrote:
| No class action or fines for discrimination based on gender?
| OkCupid gave users different prices based on whether they
| selected male or female for their profile.
| john_strinlai wrote:
| > _OkCupid gave users different prices based on whether they
| selected male or female for their profile._
|
| never heard or thought about this before, but it kind of makes
| sense for a dating app. its one of the only levers available to
| them to attempt any sort of balance between user genders. it
| sucks for everyone (including the users) if the male:female
| ratio is like 20:1 or whatever.
|
| i would rather pay a couple of extra dollars, relative to the
| opposite sex, if it meant access to a wider pool of potential
| matches.
| justonceokay wrote:
| If your main problem with a dating app is that men pay more
| than women, then you're not going to like being in a
| relationship very much at all :)
| loeg wrote:
| The ratio is that bad anyway.
| hamdingers wrote:
| If you exclude bots and otherwise fake accounts the ratio is
| _much_ worse than 20:1.
| john_strinlai wrote:
| that sucks!
|
| whatever more accurate numbers you want to substitute in
| there is fine, the point remains the same.
| hamdingers wrote:
| My point is that what you're being asked to pay for is
| wildly misrepresented.
|
| To be more explicit: you're paying extra to give more
| porn bots access to your inbox.
| avgDev wrote:
| Reminds of being a young guy and feeling annoyed when girls
| are being let into clubs for free without waiting in line,
| and I had to wait in line and pay. Sometimes I could not get
| in because the club was "full", but the girls would be
| allowed in.
| mont_tag wrote:
| If the service is free, you are the product :-)
| duped wrote:
| It used to be that promoters were paid per woman they
| brought to the club and nothing for men, and they would in
| turn charge a cover per man.
|
| No idea how these businesses operate now. I'm sure there's
| still sliding scales of sliminess based on the quality of
| the club and its management.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| Aren't they going out of business in large numbers? I'm
| not sure how much of that has to do with the dating scene
| as much as it has to do with younger people drinking less
| though.
| duped wrote:
| I think all attempts to explain "why <market based on
| discretionary spending by young people> is failing" that
| don't come to the conclusion "we're macro-economically
| cooked" are wrong.
| bluGill wrote:
| In the 80's a club near me got into some sort of trouble
| for that so they switched to skirt night - only a tiny
| number of men were willing to wear a skirt to get in free.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| There's so much shady and unethical behavior from these
| companies I'm surprised there's not more lawsuits and
| litigation against them.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Does anything in the FTC action prevent users from filing their
| own class action suit(s)?
|
| (Sincere question, not snark)
| junkaccount100 wrote:
| Throwaway account. I tried these sites a couple of times each in
| the past (the UK versions at least). I'm married now and
| fortunately don't have to deal with "the dating scene" and how
| awful it is/was.
|
| When I signed up for Match, about ten minutes into the process my
| account suddenly changed to that of another man including
| different photo, descriptions, orientation etc. I don't know why
| this happened but it was absolutely mortifying and an outrage
| Match did this. I dread to think how shit their code has to be to
| somehow merge accounts or whatever happened. I deleted "my"
| account immediately.
|
| I imagine that counts as excessive sharing of personal data.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I had my OKC account hacked or merged to in the same fashion.
| I've never had this happen before with any online service.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I met my current wife on OKC in 2010, before online dating
| became an utter cesspool.
|
| I've been out of the dating scene for 16 years now, but based
| on what I see on social media, I think online dating sucks
| today for three reasons.
|
| 1. Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they
| want to get laid. They're not looking for a relationship,
| they're looking for a hook-up, and they're not honest about
| their intentions. It doesn't help that people argue over
| whether Tinder is a dating app or a hook-up app.
|
| 2. I'm not sure how to put this without seeming misogynistic,
| but some women greatly over-value themselves. Or at the very
| least, they have out-dated ideas of courtship. Some of them
| expect to be taken out to $50+/plate restaurants on a first
| date, while many men think women are just trying to score free
| meals. It's hard to make relationships kick off when they begin
| so adversarial.
|
| 3. Dating sites/apps have a financial incentive for your
| relationship to fail. They can give you matches they know are
| bad since it keeps you as a serial dater and on their app.
| They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer
| is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's
| not really a way around it.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > misogynistic
|
| the definition requires "contempt", but it has been diluted
| to mean any statement that merely points out of corrosive
| behavior
|
| additionally, many of the statements are actually class based
| and not inherently gendered, for example, we would call out a
| man trying to date for free meals too, but since its seen in
| contexts about women, its stated in reference to that gender,
| masquerading as contempt and misogyny, but not highlighting
| what is in the observer's heart and mind whatsoever.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Countries are starting to criminalize 'misogyny' which
| includes interrupting women during meetings. I think Brazil
| is in the process of enacting such laws. These are usually
| being bootstrapped on civil right and hate speech laws.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The misogyny law was enacted only a few days ago. It
| criminalizes "disinformation about women, even if true".
| You read that right.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > 1. Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because
| they want to get laid.
|
| so are many women, unnecessarily gendered observation
|
| you just hear less about guys crashing out over it
| mjr00 wrote:
| > Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they
| want to get laid. They're not looking for a relationship,
| they're looking for a hook-up, and they're not honest about
| their intentions.
|
| In fairness, this is not at all exclusive to online dating.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Or starting a job; wanting to advance in the office; become
| an entrepreneur; wanting to go into politics; wanting to go
| into the clergy; wanting to become president; wanting to
| visit islands; wanting run casinos; wanting to run beuaty
| pagents...
|
| Hrm...
| dotancohen wrote:
| In fairness, this is not at all exclusive to men.
|
| My experience with OKCupid was that women must lie to get
| laid, moreso than men. A man can state "just want sex" on
| his profile and it is socially neutral. A woman who posts
| such a thing has social consequences.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| When you say "$50+/plate" are you saying the dinner itself or
| each dish? Either way, (in the US) that is not considered a
| particularly expensive meal for an adult taking someone on a
| date. In 2026 you should expect $100-$200 bill with drinks
| basically anywhere. Going out to dinner is not cheap. $100 is
| actually a great deal unless we're talking chain restaurants.
|
| If you don't want to spend that every first date, then I
| would suggest not making dinner the first date. Do something
| more casual first time around. Bar, coffee/walk, whatever.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Fair question. When I think "$50/plate", I'm thinking $50
| for just the dinner main course, not including drinks,
| appetizer, or dessert.
|
| > Do something more casual first time around. Bar,
| coffee/walk, whatever.
|
| The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at
| a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or
| ice cream for a first date. They want to be wined and dined
| and treated like a princess right off the bat. They think
| they're a prize to be won simply by being a woman.
|
| Though I truly believe that _most_ women are _not_ like
| this. However, some are, and their attitude is probably
| what keeps them perpetually single.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _The problem with that is there are women that will scoff
| at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea,
| or ice cream for a first date._
|
| 404 Problems Not Found
|
| If the idea of a causal first date appeals to you, but
| not to the other party, you probably aren't a good match.
| Swipe left and find somebody else.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| If somebody gave me shade for a casual first date before
| we've even met in person that's not someone I'd want to
| take on a date anyway. Not even saying they're wrong or
| unreasonable, just think that if someone is vocally
| complaining about that maybe we aren't a good fit.
|
| You clearly think it's poor behavior so why are you
| worried about striking out with them?
| gopher_space wrote:
| > The problem with that is there are women that will
| scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee,
| tea, or ice cream for a first date.
|
| You're using the casual meeting as a filter for certain
| personalities.
|
| There are plenty of people out there who prefer a more
| formalized approach to dating, and good for them. You
| have a different preference. Being selective is _good_
| because it saves both of you time and there are no hard
| feelings.
|
| > They want to be wined and dined and treated like a
| princess right off the bat. They think they're a prize to
| be won simply by being a woman.
|
| Thinking about people you aren't interested in will just
| grind your gears.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| Especially imaginary people fitting a caricature
| mikebenfield wrote:
| You've missed the point. The point is that the women in
| question demand it. There is no shortage of women on social
| media ranting about how lazy or cheap men are who want to
| do coffee or drinks for a first date. Or especially a walk.
| If you suggest a walk for a first date there's a strong
| chance you'll never hear from her again.
| alistairSH wrote:
| So, you've saved yourself the time and expense of a
| shared walk and two cups of coffee. Isn't that a win?
| Unless you are just looking to get laid, in which case,
| suck it up and buy dinner, I guess.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Yes, but the point is that people are not successful on
| these apps because of those expectations. A lot of people
| have sort of let the whole online dating thing go
| straight to their head. And now, theyd rather die alone
| than be slightly uncomfortable for a few minutes.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Why are you guys so concerned with these people?
|
| Let them live their lives. I guarantee you they are not
| dying alone or whatever mortal curse you wish to invoke.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm not, was just responding to the apparent frustration
| and finding people who want expensive dinners dates. If
| that's not your thing, great, there are people out there
| who would love a coffee and a walk or whatever. I'm one
| of them. A formal dinner on a first date sounds awful to
| my slightly shy and introverted self. I'd much rather go
| hiking or something.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| Most of the complaints I've seen are about men being rude
| and aggressive.
|
| I can tell you from experience that it's a lot scarier to
| date men.
| Marsymars wrote:
| My reading of the comment wasn't that the problem is that
| people expect dinner to be $50+/plate, it's that people
| expect dates to be dinner, and $50+/plate.
|
| The point is really that there's an expectation mismatch
| around costs that shrinks everyone's pool of daters.
|
| For actual numbers in Canada, the Globe and Mail recently
| commissioned a survey showing about 47% of singles would
| not be willing to spend more than 50 CAD (36 usd) on a
| first date - and that 24% of singles think the man should
| pay, compared to 0.2% of singles thinking the woman should
| pay. So you can see the mismatch if you think about the
| Venn diagrams there.
|
| Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-is-
| canada-facin...
| stanford_labrat wrote:
| > They're in a sticky spot where their most successful
| customer is one that they will never see another dime from,
| and there's not really a way around it.
|
| naive question: why has no one made an app with the reverse
| incentive structure? i understand that the current business
| model is much more lucrative...but i feel like with how fed
| up people are with the inability of modern online dating to
| provide quality, long-lasting relationships a new platform
| that optimizes for match quality and longevity would eat all
| of Match Groups offerings lunches. i guess there just isn't
| enough money to be made so it's not even worth it?
| true_religion wrote:
| The reverse incentive is used by match makers. It works
| well for people seeking marriage since there is a legal
| endpoint to be reached that can't be faked and is meant to
| be permanent.
| Telaneo wrote:
| What insentives can an app maker provde to turn the
| structure around?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive
| structure?
|
| 1. Network effects. An app isn't like a new local business
| where people will naturally wander in. They may already
| exist but the market's captured everyone on the skinner box
| services
|
| 2. App stores. The deeper you look into the things needed
| to advertise as a mobile app, the more obvious it becomes.
| You need _milliions_ up front just to be featured in your
| critical launch time. If you don 't, you fall into #1 and
| it's hard to recover from the "it's so empty" early
| impressions.
|
| 3. As you said, any success despite #1 and #2 is destined
| to fail. ad won't make that money up, so the only viable
| idea is relying on a premium or subscription model. But
| paid models in the era of "free" mobile apps is a hard sell
| unless you can guarantee success. And dating is anything
| but guaranteed.
|
| That said other models have been tried to correct the
| issues with the big apps. Limiting matches, reversing the
| gender dynamics, based around special interests, etc. The
| only one I think I saw any kind of success from is one
| tailored towards rich/famous people meeting other
| rich/famous people (surprise, surprise).
| busymom0 wrote:
| Also note that as of now, Apple developer guidelines
| warns specifically of creating more dating apps. They
| consider it spam.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive
| structure?
|
| You've identified the problem but failed to adequately
| describe a solution.
|
| The matchmakers need to make money, even to just pay for
| the costs of running the service.
|
| A monthly subscription to use the service creates the
| perverse incentive to give bad matches. A one-time fee
| makes unsuccessful users feel cheated out of their money. A
| "pay us once you get married" option is ripe for abuse.
|
| Even if the service is free and paid for by selling ads,
| you'd run into the same problem of the subscription model:
| They'd be incentivized to keep you perpetually single so
| you see more ads.
| lolc wrote:
| What I want to see is a dating service where I can pledge
| some money to some charity. Everybody on the site can
| check what I've pledged, and I can release it anytime.
| The service can take their cut, fine.
|
| Now when I meet somebody through the service, and we
| think it's serious, we can release that money. And we can
| check whether the other did too!
|
| Sure there will still be profiles with people that don't
| pledge, because they're just testing the waters, or poor,
| or scammers. Whatever. Point is I can send a signal that
| at some point I want to be done with the service, and
| then pay them for that.
| leptons wrote:
| I have no idea if they do this, but they should partially
| or fully sponsor weddings of couples that met on their
| service in exchange for a small ad at the venue. There's a
| captive audience of potentially lots of single people
| watching two people that met on their service get married.
| It's a great advertising opportunity. I'd have happily put
| a "This wedding brought to you by OK-Cupid" banner at the
| bar at my wedding for $500 or $1000 towards the open bar.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| https://whatsyourprice.com
|
| They used to have a sister site. They had these kind of
| hilarious animated ads that made the whole thing seem so
| logical. One ad targeted at women and the other at men,
| both claiming that money meant you only got serious
| requests. I wish I could find those ads, they were classic.
|
| --
|
| Found one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFo-
| da_2rdI
|
| --
|
| Found the other: https://vimeo.com/21179683
| miki123211 wrote:
| There should be a "dating tax."
|
| If you get married, there should be a "what app did you
| meet on" question on the marriage application. Apps should
| get $10/month for each relationship they create, for as
| long as the partners live or until they get divorced.
|
| This would encourage app makers to "get rid" of their users
| as fast as possible, getting them into successful, long-
| term relationships, instead of keeping them on the apps for
| as long as possible to milk subscription revenue.
|
| Considering the fertility crisis that most western
| countries are facing, this is overwhelmingly likely to be
| long-term revenue-positive for governments.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they
| want to get laid.
|
| Honestly, that's fine. The issue was when the "get laid" app
| suddenly decided to be the "find serious relationship" app.
| Makes about as much sense as Roblox thinking about a dating
| app, but I guess the MBA's told them it brings more monies.
|
| > but some women greatly over-value themselves.
|
| It's overblown, but the high level concept of "women are
| picky" the inevitable course of nearly all dating aspects.
| Evolutionary wise, women need to be picky due to their long
| gestation period, and men aren't as picky because they can
| copulate with dozens of women over the course of days. Add in
| a caste system and the pareto principle, and even scenes from
| millenia ago aren't as different from 2026 Tinder as you'd
| think.
|
| But of course your last point only polarizes this existing
| natural phenomenon.
|
| >Dating sites/apps have a financial incentive for your
| relationship to fail.
|
| This is why we needed to litigate these sites yesterday. But
| we were too busy fighting amongst ourselves, like serfs
| warring in the streets while the kings sit in an ivory tower.
| This is an issue only regulation can fix. The human element
| shouln't be sold off to capitalism, especially in this time
| where people are supposedly concerned about falling birth
| rates.
| neonstatic wrote:
| > Criticizes pathological behavior of some men openly
|
| > Puts a disclaimer before criticizing pathological behavior
| of some women
|
| Nothing will improve until we as men stop gatekeeping
| ourselves from stating facts openly, without apologies. Women
| can be very shitty, often are, and that has to be said
| without the need to preface it or soften the blow.
| istjohn wrote:
| What exactly will improve if men are more blunt and non-
| apologetic?
| neonstatic wrote:
| Women are very sensitive to general approval and
| consensus seeking. Once enough opposition is voiced to
| certain behaviors, women will be more inclined to not
| pursue those behaviors, at least in public.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > Many men (Not all, but many) are ... not looking for a
| relationship, ... and they're not honest about their
| intentions.
|
| > Some women ... expect to be taken out to $50+/plate
| restaurants on a first date, ... women are just trying to
| score free meals
|
| > It's hard to make relationships kick off when they begin so
| adversarial.
|
| I think you're letting a judgmental and expectant point of
| view toward certain women on the apps cloud over a very real
| problem of why the apps are not very useful for finding
| relationships. The basis of which is our expectations of how
| we want others to be and when they are not, they are the
| problem (justified or not) -- that then morphs into a
| cascading sequence of issues, if engaged with, on repeat.
|
| That these particular women, who have expectations, at least
| say so -- up front. Yet comparing that with men are "not
| honest about their intentions" (expectations).
|
| How is a woman looking for an actual relationship suppose to
| work with dishonesty? Men looking for an actual relationship
| can steer clear of that impending disaster.
|
| I can ignore someone who declares their expectations, which I
| find off-putting. And if they don't declare it but expect a
| mindreader and they instead get a coffee, well I'm out a
| coffee and thankfully they showed who they were early and I
| move on. Their loss, not mine. On the other hand, if my date
| was stringing me along and lying about what they wanted until
| I was deceived enough into handing over what that actually
| was -- that's a far more consequential loss than a $4 cup of
| coffee. We should want everyone to clearly state what they
| want and expect, without the judgements, then everyone (with
| proper intentions) would benefit.
| rm999 wrote:
| This article has more information - looks like this was from 12
| years ago https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-
| ftc-cla...
|
| > The FTC said OkCupid users were never told their information -
| including nearly 3 million photos, demographic information and
| location data - would be shared in 2014 with Clarifai, a facial
| recognition technology company, contrary to OkCupid's privacy
| policies.
| dang wrote:
| Thanks - we've put that link in the toptext as well.
| chaps wrote:
| I once went on a date with someone who did research at OKCupid
| who told me that they were doing NLP-style analysis of peoples'
| messages that they sent to each other. Still not really sure what
| to think of the date itself, but it was a fucked up admission.
| m463 wrote:
| makes me wonder if the person you went on a date with cherry-
| picked you due to your data. (anyone who would post on hacker
| news is obviously a good catch!)
| toast0 wrote:
| > anyone who would post on hacker news is obviously a good
| catch!
|
| "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" may apply here
| chaps wrote:
| You're funny.
|
| I think the "only thing" that would make me cherry-pickable
| from their data is that I used an autoclicker to give
| everyone a 5 star... I have mixed feelings about doing that,
| but I got a couple (surprisingly nice) dates out of it that
| never went anywhere.
| scottyah wrote:
| If only they had the long term data too. It might make for
| easier discussions on the first date, but maybe there's more
| to opposites attracting/different roles in a relationship.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| If you remember the old OkCupid blog they used to post
| interesting articles about online dating. I know their article
| about whether you should smile on your profile picture was
| eventually debunked [1], but it was nonetheless nice to have
| objective, data-based, non-pua advice on how to be successful
| in online dating.
|
| [1] https://blog.photofeeler.com/okcupid-is-wrong-about-
| smiling-...
| jacquesm wrote:
| You mistook a marketing effort for science.
| loverboy69 wrote:
| There was an actual effort at data science going on here
| before the marketing team took it over in the latter years.
| See the published book Dataclysm by one of the founders for
| more of the good stuff.
| scottyah wrote:
| I did like that they shared a lot of hard data with insightful
| analysis. At the time, there were a lot of narratives about
| what women wanted and it was refreshing to see them post what
| was actually working. I remember being skeptical about anything
| being private online at the time, but I guess that perspective
| wasn't as pervasive.
| crazygringo wrote:
| They did _tons_ of data analysis across all aspects of
| profiles, and had a popular blog where they published the
| results.
|
| They were heavily involved in researching what factors more
| reliably led to not just better matches, but better
| relationships -- when you disabled your account, they'd ask if
| it was because you'd met someone through OkC and ask you to
| pick who, if you were willing to share.
|
| I don't think there was anything fucked up about it, as long as
| it was all anonymized and at scale. Trying to understand what
| messaging strategies worked better or worse could be a major
| part of figuring out how to improve matches.
|
| Like, one obvious factor could be to match people who send lots
| of long messages with lots of questions with each other, while
| a separate set matches people who's messaging style is one
| sentence at a time. I'm not saying that would necessarily work
| well, but it's not crazy to research if NLP analysis of
| messages can produce additional potential compatibility
| signals.
|
| The whole _point_ of OkC back then was to try to develop as
| many data-based signals as possible to improve matches.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > As part of a settlement, OkCupid, operated by Dallas-based
| Humor Rainbow, Inc., and Match Group Americas, which provides
| services for Humor Rainbow, will be prohibited from
| misrepresenting its privacy policies.
|
| Because everyone else is "allowed" to misrepresent its privacy
| policies.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| It's more like "strike one," and sets up a clear standard for
| what happens if this continues, as it did in another well-known
| case.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/facebook-agrees-
| pay-...
| john_strinlai wrote:
| this kind of "action"/"settlement" is too funny:
|
| >" _As part of a settlement, OkCupid [...] will be prohibited
| from misrepresenting its privacy policies._ "
|
| >" _Under the proposed settlement, OkCupid and Match are
| permanently prohibited from misrepresenting or assisting others
| in misrepresenting: [...]_ "
|
| every company should _already_ be "prohibited from
| misrepresenting its privacy policies" and the collection/controls
| stuff.
|
| 12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc
| investigation, and we get "please dont do that again". (dad
| voice: im not surprised, just disappointed)
| gruez wrote:
| >12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc
| investigation
|
| To be fair, the complaint only alleges one instance of data
| transfer, so it's unclear whether the privacy violations were
| actually occurring for 12 years.
|
| Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction of
| the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the false
| statements they made to the media and the users. It's like if
| your nemesis died under mysterious circumstances, a journalist
| asked you whether you killed him, you said no, and it turned
| out you did. Is it a lie? Yeah. Could it be reasonably
| characterized as "intentional obstruction of police
| investigation"? Hardly.
| john_strinlai wrote:
| > _so it 's unclear whether the privacy violations were
| actually occurring for 12 years._
|
| i wasnt clear in my comment, but i meant it in the sense of
| "12 years to resolve this one incident".
|
| > _Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction
| of the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the
| false statements they made to the media and the users. _
|
| i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here,
| and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.
| gruez wrote:
| >i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here,
| and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.
|
| Yeah you're right. The part about obstructing the
| investigation was in the press release but I was only
| looking at the complaint.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The US Government routinely treats corporations with kid
| gloves. When they're found to be breaking the law, the company
| usually says "oopsie doopsie, did we do that??" and the
| government in turn settles with "naughty, naughty, just don't
| do it again!" It's like kindergarten punishment. But if you or
| I break federal law, it's PMITA Prison for us.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Americans _explicitly_ voted for this. From Reagan on, it was
| explicit policy that we should leave corporations be, for god
| knows what bullshit reason. Then, _finally_ Biden 's admin
| started gearing up the government to actually enforce the
| laws on the book for a functional market.
|
| So people voted for not that. Again.
| mlmonkey wrote:
| All of these sites do shady shit. I'm so glad I'm no longer
| single.
|
| I signed up for eHarmony with a unique email address dedicated to
| that site. After wasting 6 months, I chose to delete my account.
|
| Lo and behold, soon spam started to show up on this account, as
| if the floodgates had been opened. It was a unique account that I
| had not used anywhere else just for this specific reason, and my
| hunch was justified.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| They were good 15 years ago. As with all things, it went to
| shit when Match.com started consolidating everything and the
| bean counters realized that a quality product was not as
| profitable.
|
| Surprised it took this long to get litigation. So many people
| complaining about how crap dating sites are, but no one thought
| to realize the site itself was the problem and fell into the
| whole "looksmaxxing" grift. Some people really will do anything
| except admit that rich people are corrupt.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| My experience was poor more than 15 years ago so ymmv
| miki123211 wrote:
| Dating sites are an extremely hard business to be in.
|
| On a traditional (social) network, whether that'd be
| Facebook, the railroad or the Bloomberg Terminal, you have
| the network effect. The more users you get, the more
| interesting the network becomes, which means yet more users
| want to join. This is a positive feedback loop.
|
| The entire point of a dating site is to find somebody to
| leave that site with. Statistically speaking (and at that
| scale, statistics is the only thing that matters), attractive
| users[1] are more likely to find a match and leave, while
| unattractive users are likely to stay (or come back) and keep
| looking. As time goes on, the fraction of unattractive users
| will keep increasing. You can fix this with enough growth,
| but exponential growth can't go on forever due to population
| size constraints. And once you get into that state, your
| growth will be constrained further, which just puts you onto
| a downward slide into hell.
|
| And then there's the question of revenue. It's hard to
| scalably do deals where the user must pay you when they find
| a relationship on the site (like the matchmaking services of
| old used to do), so subscriptions or one-time fees are your
| only options. Neither of them are great, subscriptions
| encourage you to keep users on the site (which puts your goal
| opposite to what the users want), one-time fees work against
| the network effect and constrain growth.
|
| [1] By "attractiveness", I mean something much wider than
| just visual / physical attractiveness. An ability to enter
| and maintain a successful long-term relationship in general.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _After wasting 6 months, I chose to delete my account.
|
| Lo and behold, soon spam started to show up on this account, as
| if the floodgates had been opened._
|
| Facebook is also guilty of this.
|
| I set up a Facebook account for a relative around 2006. The
| e-mail address is name_facebook@ a domain that I control.
|
| Every six months or so, Facebook will send out almost daily
| e-mails for a month saying "Person x commented on your post!"
| or some variant. You know how I know this relative of mine
| didn't make a new post?
|
| He's been dead since 2011.
| leptons wrote:
| I do this for every site I sign up for. I have a 'catch all'
| email address, so I can put whateverIwant@mydomain.com and the
| emails will get to my inbox. So now I know who is selling or
| leaking my email address. So far it's been very few, but I also
| don't sign up for new sites very often.
| guelo wrote:
| When match was illegally allowed to buy okcupid an then tinder in
| violation of antitrust laws is when I realized how thoroughly
| libertarian propaganda has won and is destroying the country. I
| mean we've now fully legalized gambling and bribery of
| politicians for the sake of fake freedom. We're cooked.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What are you talking about? Match didn't buy Tinder.
|
| IAC had owned Match.com for a while and then _developed_ Tinder
| from scratch.
|
| Match didn't buy Tinder. Tinder was always part of the same
| company from day one.
| loverboy69 wrote:
| You're right, and you're wrong.
|
| IAC owned both Match and HatchLabs (which developed Tinder in
| 2012). They were later merged into one entity, and even later
| spun off from IAC altogether. They were "part of the same
| company" in that giant mega-corp super conglomerate owned
| both, but practically they were fully separate entities when
| Tinder was created. Match didn't buy Tinder, but it was
| merged with Tinder by parent company, just like OkCupid was
| acquired by IAC and merged with Match.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, I was trying to keep it simple. :) I suppose it all
| comes down to what you mean by "fully separate entities"...
| but at the end of the day it _was_ all under IAC. The
| corporate control and reporting structure went up to the
| CEO and board of IAC. Hatch Labs was an incubator IAC
| _created_ specifically for developing things like Tinder.
| Yes Tinder got reshuffled and eventually it was all spun
| off but Tinder started under the same roof as Match. It
| wasn 't bought.
| nodesocket wrote:
| I'm almost certain these dating apps, including Hinge and Bumble
| are creating loads of good-looking fake women profiles to attract
| male users and keep their platforms "sticky". There are
| suspicious telltale signs like location downtown when nobody says
| they live downtown in my area. The same responses and prompts
| across multiple profiles. It's equivalent to them cooking their
| books, but with vanity metrics.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Or the more realistic, less tin-foil-hat reason, sophisticated
| chat bots are a real problem and dating platforms aren't immune
| to them.
| Tostino wrote:
| Why are you giving these companies the benefit of the doubt
| when they've already shown that they do this in the past?
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Realistically the party with the most straight forward
| financial incentive to do this should be the first we
| suspect, and that would certainly be the platform itself.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Or the more realistic, less tin-foil-hat reason,
| sophisticated chat bots are a real problem and dating
| platforms aren't immune to them.
|
| I can tell you with absolute certainty from working in the
| industry a decade ago that the entire business model revolves
| around fake female profiles and dark UX patterns (lies) to
| trick lonely men. I can vividly remember that it was this big
| open secret that we all had to dance around all the time,
| pretending our product was legitimate and helping people.
| It's literally the only viable model for dating apps and
| sites; anyone who is actually successful at using them stops
| paying. I have no doubt the big apps are using their own LLM
| bots at this point.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I don't know. I don't think they need to. There are enough
| women who love the attention they get on these apps.
| ninininino wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam
|
| > We invest $125 million annually in trust and safety teams,
| features and initiatives to help prevent and disrupt potential
| harm on and off our platforms. As we outlined in our Impact
| Report, we remain focused on several areas, including safety
| policy, features, social advocacy, law enforcement operations
| and outreach, and safety by design.
|
| from:
|
| https://mtch.com/single-news/922/#:~:text=We%20invest%20$125...
|
| "Americans are losing at least $119 billion every year to
| scams, according to a new estimate from the nonprofit Consumer
| Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group."
|
| from:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/scam-cost-price-money-...
| hulitu wrote:
| > FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users,
| sharing personal data
|
| Google ? Meta ? Microsoft ? Oh, i see, they pay well.
| fortran77 wrote:
| They should also go after Grindr which--according to Gavin
| Newsom's official campaign X account--reveals information about
| Newson's political oppponents
|
| https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/2036864339722875380
| tamimio wrote:
| > related data with it because OkCupid's founders were financial
| investors in the third party
|
| can we know that third party?!
| MoonWalk wrote:
| "As part of a settlement... will be prohibited from
| misrepresenting its privacy policies."
|
| Did I miss it, or were there no other parts to this settlement
| mentioned?
|
| In other words: no punishment at all.
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