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On Wednesday, the FTC alleged in a legal complaint that Match.com and other dating sites owned by Match group broke US law when they let accounts known to be fraudulent message netizens who had set up free profiles.
The problem, the regulator says in its Texas court paperwork (PDF), starts with the dotcom's business model of letting users join for free but charging them to view messages, or to see who is interested in them, and send replies.
In this case, the FTC says that the site allowed obvious scam accounts that had been banned from contacting paid customers to message people with free accounts. The free users were not told who was contacting them, nor see the content of the love note, nor that the sender had been flagged as a scammers.
Rather, the users were told they would need to upgrade to a paid account in order to see that sexy memo, and only then, after coughing up cash, were they notified that they were being courted by a bogus profile. In other words, the FTC says that not only did Match allow scammers to operate on its site, but it also used them to make money.
What's a lonely heart to do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @04:29AM
Color me shocked. Shocked, I say!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 26 2019, @04:59AM (6 children)
Match has been pulling crap like this for over a decade. They keep old accounts active. They have their employees play at being eligible singles. When your account has just expired, that's when you get mystery messages one of which could be the future love of your life, but almost certainly isn't.
Years ago for a birthday gift, I received 3 months with Match. Created a profile and tried to find matches. I strongly suspect Match was wasting my time by mixing dead accounts into the search results, and so I was likely sending messages to people who were no longer using Match. Doubtless my messages were used to try to get them to renew. Meanwhile, the response rate was a truly abysmal 10%. And no one initiated contact with me during the 3 months I could have received messages. I did not renew, did not get to read the mystery messages that suddenly arrived with such suspiciously convenient timing for Match, and never again used a pay dating site. Jerks. They deserve huge penalties. Maybe even shut them down.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by progo on Thursday September 26 2019, @05:18AM
Government moves real show when it doesn't care.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @01:27PM (3 children)
Let's not just blame the one site, when IAC owns Match and multiple dating sites [iac.com] including the open sewer that is Plenty of Fish. They haven't broken OKCupid yet at least.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @04:12PM (2 children)
OkCupid is badly broken. I had a lot of luck with it years ago by messaging the women that visited my page. But now you can't message anybody unless you both opt in and as a result, rather than getting a response half the time, I don't bother at all with the site.
The problem with these sites more than anything else is that there's a conflict of interest. They stop making money when you find somebody. There's an incentive to give matches that are just good enough to keep people on the site and no more.
Similarly Zoosk keeps trying to set me up with single mothers even though I've explicitly stated that it's a deal breaker, but parts of the site don't show that information. They also don't check to see that age ranges are compatible, so I get a lot of visitors that are too old for me.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 26 2019, @09:19PM (1 child)
> there's a conflict of interest. They stop making money when you find somebody.
Lot of businesses have this inherent conflict. Doctors, automobile repair services, and, yes, software engineers are all working against their self-interests. The faster they fix a problem, finish a job, the sooner they're out of work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 27 2019, @12:27AM
The difference is that those other things are repeat business in most cases. Or at least they get word of mouth. You very quickly run out of people to refer to a dating service as your friends and social circle get married.
Yes, you probably won't be involved in many law suits, but you might be and if you're not, you might know somebody that is.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 26 2019, @05:23PM
Seems like a pretty straightforward case of fraud, to me.
Selling a service based on messages from people you know aren't real (aka lies).
Glad the FTC is going after them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @08:42AM (6 children)
But we wanted it, don't we?
Modern capitalism main rule is "rob and then sell". What was available and group-maintained, or what was available in a TCTM manner, has been taken over, inflated and now is sold. This works with products, services, human interactions, free time and even family. And we like it, nobody disagrees.
First, we were sitting without any action when contacts between people have been minimized to work and business and all other have been forbidden. Yes, forbidden, there is no law about it, but propaganda works for it. Look that today if a guy tries to talk with a girl or woman in the bus or train, he gets arrested for harassment. There's even a popular information, especially for IT men, not to talk with women without witnesses in conferences. This is thanks to modern propaganda and giving rights without accompanying duties. There was no problem. We want it.
Next, when people started to talk about the problem, it was OK for all of us to mob against such people. See the recent affair with Mr Stallman.
Next, we admitted that "people" rendered or heavily photoshopped presented in media are current not beauty, but average ideals, and confirmed that uglier people should be bullied anyways, as then they will buy more products.
So what the hell we expected? That brainwashed with Cycles-rendered unnatural bodies people will get interested in for example an average "neckbeard" who spends half of life with nose in IDE?
The most funny thing is that in another portal, when a similar thread was present, someone put an old blog post with title "why you should never pay for online dating" or similar. I remember when people were writing the same things about hosting! And currently the means of doing websites are in hands of the blessed publishers and, for the same price as previously, we get a trimmed, almost read-only "Internet" viewing.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @01:31PM
What does the Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics have to do with this? Your inadequate linguistic flow and complaint about "arrested for harassment" would hint at your status as an incel.
We don't need comments from a guy who looks like a short order cook from a Pikesville Waffle House. Hit the gym, lift some weights, and get a clue.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 26 2019, @02:11PM (4 children)
I agree with pieces of what you say: The more human interactions are disrupted, the easier it is to be sold something you didn't need and would not have wanted if you'd only had some real relationships.
However, where you have it wrong is that it was ever a smart idea to initially try to get a woman alone to talk to them. This is why, at least historically, male and female adolescents hang out together in same-sex cliques. Not because of lack of interest in the other sex, but rather that such things were group affairs as much for safety as anything else. Group of three boys walks up to group of three girls so that one can make an ask. Both girls and boys had wingmen (women?) to make interactions more safe. At least to a certain age, which is where the concept "spinsters" (and some degree "bachelors") came from because the sizes of those groups shrink after most of them pair off. And there are still cultures which retains elements of these practices and talking to a woman by herself may well get you hostility from that person's family. Culture, however, has progressively tried to break that up thanks to television, internet, and other distractions.
Dating sites do that squared and cubed, where you are effectively 1-on-1 from the get go, with only the computer service to act as company.
On your next item: Talking to isolated women on buses, trains, or at conferences. Not cool, and never has been. (Does it ever work? Yeah. That doesn't mean it was ever smart or right to do so.) Again, what group setting are you in that makes the woman feel safe enough that you're not going to flip on her and sexually assault her? This has *always* been true. What has changed is that women are finally feeling safe and secure about it to say when it happens to them. There is something of a backlash today because of the historical silence that was the norm.
Yes, bury yourself in work and don't be surprised when the only reason someone might generate interest is if you have money. Being a neckbeard has not as much to do with it (although if you are not grooming to be attractive to the other sex isn't that on you) nearly as much as not being a complete enough person to be attractive to someone. Big surprise.
So, what places are good environments to meet women? Bars do in fact work to make initial contacts, if you are in a group. Churches are still possible, at least for churches which have appeal (and aren't a collection of 50+ grey hairs and one family with kids still there because parents put pressure on for that). Volunteer someplace that has a mixed-gender environment and have no expectations, but make friends with people in your same gender. Take some education in a co-ed setting (say community college community education), again with no immediate expectations of dating but just to meet people including those of the opposite sex. Go to 'speed dating' events and you get the group safety with an individual dynamic. If you have friends who are married... see if they know anyone and would be willing to 'double date' (not blind dating...) Parties and weddings are fine and if you don't know anyone, well find out.
By the way, if all you want is a sex experience, you can also do bars or parties. Expect a lot of rejection, but if you're straightforward about what you want you may have success. The biggest thing you should be cautious about is that the person isn't too drunk and/or have witnesses to the same... again groups help.
As to anything with work.... no, and it has always been stupid to think work is a good place to start romantic relationships. You do indeed take significant risks going that route. But it's your life.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Thursday September 26 2019, @03:04PM (3 children)
This. Capitalism cannot replace real community.
I heard on the radio yesterday that community is people you don't have to pay to care about you. The context was special-needs housing projects, but I instantly thought that the entire concept applies to everyone.
Mutually beneficial relationships are in many ways the most fulfilling aspect of human life. It's what we evolved to appreciate.
You mentioned churches. I mention them again because churches are more than places of worship. They are community centers. Often, shared religious beliefs is simply a pretense to gather regularly, plan shared meals, maybe even volunteer resources towards goals benefiting the larger community.
It's sad that organizations like this have fallen out of favor. Not just churches, but also lodges and fraternities, community volunteer organizations, and secret societies. These are all the domain of the increasingly old, but they all served to connect working people and form real communities that were not based on paying people to care about each other.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @03:57PM
Lots of good points in this thread. Maker spaces and the whole "maker" movement seem like a modern search for community--another place to look?
Personally, I have my own shop, so never felt the need to visit a maker space, but maybe I should try one to expand my local circle of friends a bit? As it stands now, most of my friends are far-flung. Still great friends but we don't see each other very often.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @12:28PM (1 child)
And I still agree with You. We have different countries and social/economic situation, so it may work for You, why not? Especially that You heard such things on the radio, well, in my country if something may reduce income it's not censored from media, it's self-censored by the mentality. Hell, yeah, the "early capitalism" after a few decades, ex-eastern block.
I would kindly not describe situation in maker spaces and similar in my conditions as who was there, does not laugh in circus.
Generally, the first thing which blows off with modern capitalism are these organizations. They may: 1. Act as polarizing points in marketing industry re-tuning themselves to new conditions or 2. Shut down from lack of funds or interest as interests are driven by heavy marketing industry, not people's decisions. This applies to churches/parishes too (they usually go 1 so deep that they engage in political parties marketing campaigns). Some lodges, societies or fraternities survived in some Anglosphere and some post-Germanic countries just because they resisted to be ads posts a few decades ago, when it was a bit easier to defend such things.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday September 30 2019, @07:50PM
You are describing capitalism after the fall of communism, yes? I find it very sad that in many parts of the world, Soviet-style communism and WTO-style capitalism are the only options.
Western economies are based on a more regulated approach to capitalism. Usually there is some legal protection for laborers who are willing to accept less economic potential in exchange for stability. I think this is largely an artifact of defending against pre-Soviet Marxism.
The conditions to bootstrap this kind of economy may not exist anymore. Still, I think most countries trying to grow their economy would be more successful doing as Westerners do than by doing what Westerners say. Because the WTO is obviously more interested in making money for the capitalists than in growing your economy. Just like how the Soviets were more interested in growing their social and military influence than in protecting the proletariat.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @02:07PM
I made a free account there 10 years ago and keep getting notifications that I have new visitors that sent me messages or signed my guestbook. Of course you have to pay to view them and when you do they didn't even go to the same school and you have no idea who they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Thursday September 26 2019, @02:54PM
That is one awful title. Is "Match Dot-Con" some kind of conference? Is "Cyber-Lonely-Hearts" the name of a group of programmers, concept album, or some trendy software? Does the fork still comply with GPL?
No, it's actually a cluster of made-up cutesy headline-speak that makes zero sense without reading the summary. Only then can the reader truly appreciate how "clever" the headline-writer was.
I for one would like to see comprehensible headlines on Soylent News.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 26 2019, @05:17PM
Push away from your computer and meet people IRL? Just an idea.