USA TODAY — Dec — True.com, a Dallas-based online dating service, began touting its criminal background checks in July 2004 and wrote proposed legislation that would force online dating sites to say whether they conduct such checks. The proposal has been considered in California, Virginia, Ohio, Texas, Florida and Michigan. In Illinois, state Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, says he is having a similar bill drafted that he intends to introduce in January. "It seems like a common-sense thing," he says. "Internet dating isn't the same as going out to a social gathering. You can meet a large number of people very quickly. There aren't any types of precautions. … We have to do as much as we can to protect people from predators." Match.com says background checks would add $10 to $15 to the cost of its three-month membership. Herb Vest, CEO of True.com, says background checks can help the online dating industry's credibility. In 2004, 4.7 million people subscribed to an online dating site, says Andrew Peach, research director for Jupiter Research. "It's going to be better for everyone if the online dating industry is seen as a safe place," Vest says. True.com says it rejects 5% of its applicants because of criminal convictions. Vest acknowledges that True.com's system has holes, but says "I can't promise criminals that they can't get on" True.com. "But if I find them, they're going to wish they hadn't." FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
20 thoughts on “Background Checks Split Matchmaking Sites”
Maybe it’s time to interview a top Match.com (or vitually every other industry person) where they can lay out all the problems they see with background checks and why True.com is selling an illusion of safety. What do you say Mark? – Please be fair and throw them the same plums you through True in all their interviews. Let’s see some interviews with people who have a different opinion of True if this is an industry watch board.
I think the bigger quesion is with all these semi secret investigations into online dating sites now happening, what lawmaker would want their name attached to true.com or any other paid dating site for that matter?
Please see the link on the right under ‘controversy.’ There are over 50 comments under the post regarding the background checks. I primed this discussion by asking prominent members of the industry to comment. I specifically called Jack Mardack because I knew he was adamantly opposed to the background checks. Many others are adamantly opposed to the legislation.
Legislation bad, background checks good. That’s my personal position. The current checks do seem to be quite flawed, with some gaps in the data, but they are far better than nothing. I hope that as the volume for background checks grows, and some of the record restrictions are removed the checks will improve.
Well Markus – here’s another question for you. Can you explain how having to pay for a background check on each member or having a government agency (really True.com’s lobbiests) design your home page with warning lablels designed specifically to scare off clients from joining might effect your currently FREE model? If your conversions cut in half – how on earth could you or anyone else for that matter survive?
Mark,
I agree that they are good – for the sites that want to offer them. And if a site decides to offer them, well then they clearly have a great benefit to promote over other sites that don’t offer them. That’s the way business is supposed to work in America. If you have a benefit, you promote it to the public. If the public likes your offer, they will come to you. I am glad to see you also agree that legislating background checks is not right for the industry. Clearly – they are flawed and that should be the key point legislators should see from what happened in California with True. Even if the idea is good – there are serious flaws that even Herb Vest admits to. Let’s see True.com set the example for the full disclosure they promote by prominently posting on their home page in big bold letters that their background check is seriously flawed.
Bill Broadbent
CEO
Instinct Marketing
True.com doesn’t do any background checks on FREE members and they are writing the law.
From what my members say I’d guess over 75% of their daily email traffic are auto generated bait emails, and emails from paid members(users who have a background check done) to free members(no background check)
As an Canadian company i could care less about what laws are passed in the USA. Myspace ebay craigslist and nearly every major community on the internet would be effected before me.
Mark,
what happens if match.com used true’s model for background checks and only about 20% of communications was between paid/background checked members? The client assumes that EVERYONE on the site has had a background check done. I bet there would be a class action lawsuit within 4 weeks of the law being in effect.
Unless a dating site restricts ALL contact to between paid members only then they are not in voilation of all these proposed laws.
I would like this very simple question answed by True.com
It’s so obvious that lawmakers are being used as a part of the marketing compaign. Otherwise, why would one dating site care what others do or don’t? If they offer a background check or not? Why?
I don’t even want to name the initiator of the campaign, because the PR is everything they want out of this brouhaha.
It doesn’t take mindreading skills to understand that two birds are targeted here by one stone: to get PR and links as a result and to hurt competitors.
That’s an unfair business practice. The only point is being proved is that it’s cheaper to buy lawmakers and lobbyists nowadays than a Google click. What a time!
I wish state reps could read this or similar discussion (or read generally speaking). Then any of the questions below could bury the legislation:
– why aren’t newspapers’ personals clissefied cover by the legislation?
– Who controls the quality of the background check? What if the dating providers just fakes it like some sites do?
– Who should be covered: if paying members only who actually provides their personal details then what about free members?
– Why isn’t the STI check (sexually transmitted diseases) required by the legislation? Does it mean that the lawmakers prefer the public to safe and sick?
– Why doesn’t anyone require eBay provide the background check? Aren’t convicts more likely to commit fraud? That’s the logic used.
And this list can go on and on.
I start the foundation and the site next week and will call it “The dating industry for freedom.”
Thats what i get for writing in the early hours.
Is true.com going to restrict messaging on its site so that only paid members may contact each other.
If they don’t do this they are in voilation of their own proposed laws.
Markus,
True, like most paid sites, already requires members to be paid if they want to contact each other (not including winks). So True members can assume that any member they communicate with beyond winks is a paid member and has gone through a background check.
If other sites like Match or Yahoo implemented background checks they would have to put whether or not a member has gone through one their profile since there would be no other sure way to tell.
Can’t any free member read any message from a paid member? Ie they don’t need to be paid to read it.
Users have gotten really good at sending out mass messages diguising contact information to get around the filters. So in that case the introduction is made on true.com the actual conversation would take place on IM or email.
Even better example is free members creating a riddle in their profile that leads to their email address, or somehow sneaking in contact info… no background check has been done and people on the site think there has, in this case true.com is libel if something happens.
I would think that if nigerian russian scammers etc scam money out of someone via true.com, true.com could be libel for the amount scammed and a heck of a lot more.
With so much liability what dating site could afford to even list non paying members in the search results or allow a non paying member to even search the database?
Markus,
True states on their website that “all members who contact you are screened by one of the Internet’s largest criminal records databases.” Even though they don’t explicitly say “through the True website,” to me the meaning is obvious and therefore any member that is successful in sneaking their contact information into their profile shouldn’t expect anyone that contacts them to have gone through a background check. Similarly, any member that contacts another member outside of True (without having first had a conversation with them through the site) shouldn’t expect that member to have gone through a background check.
For these reasons, I don’t think True would, or should, be libel if two members contacted each other outside of the site and something bad happened. Of course, this is just my opinion and I’m not a lawyer. If True wanted to be extra sure they could explicitly tell their members that if they want to be sure of their safety that they should, at least initially, communicate through the website. And who knows, it might even help them increase their conversions if they did.
Try this one guys – you won’t believe it: Cut and paste this from the bullets on their home page.
When I cut this bullet: (to make a comment here)
Criminal Background Screening – All members who contact you are screened through one of the largest criminal records databases on the Internet.
This is what got pasted:
All members who contact you are screened through one of the largest criminal records databases on the Internet. Criminal Background Screening
Before True™ members are allowed to communicate with you, they are screened by Rapsheets.com, one of the largest databases of criminal records on the Internet. Anyone with a U.S. felony or sexual offense conviction recorded in this database is prevented from communicating with you. For a current list of covered jurisdictions, please click here.
[ close ]
Okay – here’s what happened. It’s a rollover and this is what you see if you happen to know to click on the rollover. Then if you happen to click on the rollover you see the above paragraph. Then you need to click again to see what they cover. Then you have to read through pages of text to see what is covered.
Amazing – but they want everyone else to post things on their homepage. This is completely laughable.
Everyone needs to read the changes to True.com push for background checks.
Nearly all of the states have made changes. A major change is who does the checks and the fees to do them.
States want their law enforcement to do the checks NOT FOR PROFIT COMPANIES LIKE RAPSHEET. And, another major change is the fee for the checks. The states are looking at how to raise money and where the fees for the checks will benefit.
That would mean True.com would have to charge the fees that would be imposed by the states. True.com claimed $1.50 was their cost for the checks with rapsheet. States charging $20.00 and using their law enforcement. True isn’t reading the motions and changes to the law they are trying to pass.
Looks to me that what True is doing will be their own down fall.
Mark B.
I have heard that you are on True’s payroll. Which makes sense since you are just about the only one that supports True. Don’t you think you should let your readers know where your loyality lays?
True openly admits they reject 10% of people because they are married background checks etc etc. But only 2-5% of their membership is screened, ie screening can only happen when a credit card is given.
Assuming they have 4 million members, they have 400,000 people with criminal records married etc in their database. These people will show up in search results, and a paid member will be able to contact a free member.
The only way they can cover their asses if they put a big disclaimer on every non paying members profile that there has been no background check done on this person.
What good are background checks if the only cover 2-5% of all registered members? There are going to be a lot of legal issues.
Gentlemen,
With all my respect, you overestimate the ability of state reps to comprehend how the online dating works not even mentioning that it’s a totally unrealistic goal to make them say free members from paid ones. Counting percentage of coverage can’t also be an argument for state people. They think at large (at least they think so). Wouldn’t you agree?
The question is much bigger then the details of the online dating technology. And it’s larger but simpler at the same time. Something like:
– will the legislation improve security of users involved in meeting each other via online dating providers? And the answer is NO for a number of reasons including feasibility, limited access to criminal records, time sensitivity and so on.
– why online dating but not any other industry that brings 2 people together intentionally or unintentionally? It may be newspapers with their classified, auction site like eBay, chat rooms of all portals like Yahoo and MSN and so on.
– why criminal background check but not any other kind of check, like mental health check or STI check?
This kind of logic must be suitable for state reps.
There has been a long discussion at the lawmakers level some 50 years ago about the use of seat belts and/or airbags for a very similar reason. The corner stone was safety and security. It took 5 long year of tests and detailed analysis by the government assigned road safety institutions to figure our what works and why. And only then the legislation has passed making seat belts mandatory. Why should it be a shortcut now 50 years later?
This news puts American lawmakers supporting the True initiative on the same page with the last dictatorship in Europe http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2005/12/14/ap2391504.html
Perfect! Thank you, True guys, thank you very much! Why don’t you move to Belarus with all your stuff? You’d be welcomed there with your tendency to restrictions, limitations and mediocrity that consitutes a dictatorship.
Markus, Let me just say that I am not at all a fan of True.com or their self-serving push for background check legislation. But in their defense, I know without a doubt that once a profile has been marked as having failed a background check it will be excluded from search results from then on. This still does not prevent a paid member that has passed the background check from contacting a non-paid member who has not yet been screened; which is exactly what they tell people on their website. People who contact you have undergone the background check, or at least the persona that they put forth as themselves has been checked. 😉
-Lee Phillips
Application Developer/Contract Consultant
Maybe it’s time to interview a top Match.com (or vitually every other industry person) where they can lay out all the problems they see with background checks and why True.com is selling an illusion of safety. What do you say Mark? – Please be fair and throw them the same plums you through True in all their interviews. Let’s see some interviews with people who have a different opinion of True if this is an industry watch board.
I think the bigger quesion is with all these semi secret investigations into online dating sites now happening, what lawmaker would want their name attached to true.com or any other paid dating site for that matter?
Please see the link on the right under ‘controversy.’ There are over 50 comments under the post regarding the background checks. I primed this discussion by asking prominent members of the industry to comment. I specifically called Jack Mardack because I knew he was adamantly opposed to the background checks. Many others are adamantly opposed to the legislation.
Legislation bad, background checks good. That’s my personal position. The current checks do seem to be quite flawed, with some gaps in the data, but they are far better than nothing. I hope that as the volume for background checks grows, and some of the record restrictions are removed the checks will improve.
Well Markus – here’s another question for you. Can you explain how having to pay for a background check on each member or having a government agency (really True.com’s lobbiests) design your home page with warning lablels designed specifically to scare off clients from joining might effect your currently FREE model? If your conversions cut in half – how on earth could you or anyone else for that matter survive?
Mark,
I agree that they are good – for the sites that want to offer them. And if a site decides to offer them, well then they clearly have a great benefit to promote over other sites that don’t offer them. That’s the way business is supposed to work in America. If you have a benefit, you promote it to the public. If the public likes your offer, they will come to you. I am glad to see you also agree that legislating background checks is not right for the industry. Clearly – they are flawed and that should be the key point legislators should see from what happened in California with True. Even if the idea is good – there are serious flaws that even Herb Vest admits to. Let’s see True.com set the example for the full disclosure they promote by prominently posting on their home page in big bold letters that their background check is seriously flawed.
Bill Broadbent
CEO
Instinct Marketing
True.com doesn’t do any background checks on FREE members and they are writing the law.
From what my members say I’d guess over 75% of their daily email traffic are auto generated bait emails, and emails from paid members(users who have a background check done) to free members(no background check)
As an Canadian company i could care less about what laws are passed in the USA. Myspace ebay craigslist and nearly every major community on the internet would be effected before me.
Mark,
what happens if match.com used true’s model for background checks and only about 20% of communications was between paid/background checked members? The client assumes that EVERYONE on the site has had a background check done. I bet there would be a class action lawsuit within 4 weeks of the law being in effect.
Unless a dating site restricts ALL contact to between paid members only then they are not in voilation of all these proposed laws.
I would like this very simple question answed by True.com
It’s so obvious that lawmakers are being used as a part of the marketing compaign. Otherwise, why would one dating site care what others do or don’t? If they offer a background check or not? Why?
I don’t even want to name the initiator of the campaign, because the PR is everything they want out of this brouhaha.
It doesn’t take mindreading skills to understand that two birds are targeted here by one stone: to get PR and links as a result and to hurt competitors.
That’s an unfair business practice. The only point is being proved is that it’s cheaper to buy lawmakers and lobbyists nowadays than a Google click. What a time!
I wish state reps could read this or similar discussion (or read generally speaking). Then any of the questions below could bury the legislation:
– why aren’t newspapers’ personals clissefied cover by the legislation?
– Who controls the quality of the background check? What if the dating providers just fakes it like some sites do?
– Who should be covered: if paying members only who actually provides their personal details then what about free members?
– Why isn’t the STI check (sexually transmitted diseases) required by the legislation? Does it mean that the lawmakers prefer the public to safe and sick?
– Why doesn’t anyone require eBay provide the background check? Aren’t convicts more likely to commit fraud? That’s the logic used.
And this list can go on and on.
I start the foundation and the site next week and will call it “The dating industry for freedom.”
Not quite following your question Markus. Could you expand on it.
Thats what i get for writing in the early hours.
Is true.com going to restrict messaging on its site so that only paid members may contact each other.
If they don’t do this they are in voilation of their own proposed laws.
Markus,
True, like most paid sites, already requires members to be paid if they want to contact each other (not including winks). So True members can assume that any member they communicate with beyond winks is a paid member and has gone through a background check.
If other sites like Match or Yahoo implemented background checks they would have to put whether or not a member has gone through one their profile since there would be no other sure way to tell.
Can’t any free member read any message from a paid member? Ie they don’t need to be paid to read it.
Users have gotten really good at sending out mass messages diguising contact information to get around the filters. So in that case the introduction is made on true.com the actual conversation would take place on IM or email.
Even better example is free members creating a riddle in their profile that leads to their email address, or somehow sneaking in contact info… no background check has been done and people on the site think there has, in this case true.com is libel if something happens.
I would think that if nigerian russian scammers etc scam money out of someone via true.com, true.com could be libel for the amount scammed and a heck of a lot more.
With so much liability what dating site could afford to even list non paying members in the search results or allow a non paying member to even search the database?
Markus,
True states on their website that “all members who contact you are screened by one of the Internet’s largest criminal records databases.” Even though they don’t explicitly say “through the True website,” to me the meaning is obvious and therefore any member that is successful in sneaking their contact information into their profile shouldn’t expect anyone that contacts them to have gone through a background check. Similarly, any member that contacts another member outside of True (without having first had a conversation with them through the site) shouldn’t expect that member to have gone through a background check.
For these reasons, I don’t think True would, or should, be libel if two members contacted each other outside of the site and something bad happened. Of course, this is just my opinion and I’m not a lawyer. If True wanted to be extra sure they could explicitly tell their members that if they want to be sure of their safety that they should, at least initially, communicate through the website. And who knows, it might even help them increase their conversions if they did.
Try this one guys – you won’t believe it: Cut and paste this from the bullets on their home page.
When I cut this bullet: (to make a comment here)
Criminal Background Screening – All members who contact you are screened through one of the largest criminal records databases on the Internet.
This is what got pasted:
All members who contact you are screened through one of the largest criminal records databases on the Internet. Criminal Background Screening
Before True™ members are allowed to communicate with you, they are screened by Rapsheets.com, one of the largest databases of criminal records on the Internet. Anyone with a U.S. felony or sexual offense conviction recorded in this database is prevented from communicating with you. For a current list of covered jurisdictions, please click here.
[ close ]
Okay – here’s what happened. It’s a rollover and this is what you see if you happen to know to click on the rollover. Then if you happen to click on the rollover you see the above paragraph. Then you need to click again to see what they cover. Then you have to read through pages of text to see what is covered.
Amazing – but they want everyone else to post things on their homepage. This is completely laughable.
Everyone needs to read the changes to True.com push for background checks.
Nearly all of the states have made changes. A major change is who does the checks and the fees to do them.
States want their law enforcement to do the checks NOT FOR PROFIT COMPANIES LIKE RAPSHEET. And, another major change is the fee for the checks. The states are looking at how to raise money and where the fees for the checks will benefit.
That would mean True.com would have to charge the fees that would be imposed by the states. True.com claimed $1.50 was their cost for the checks with rapsheet. States charging $20.00 and using their law enforcement. True isn’t reading the motions and changes to the law they are trying to pass.
Looks to me that what True is doing will be their own down fall.
Mark B.
I have heard that you are on True’s payroll. Which makes sense since you are just about the only one that supports True. Don’t you think you should let your readers know where your loyality lays?
True openly admits they reject 10% of people because they are married background checks etc etc. But only 2-5% of their membership is screened, ie screening can only happen when a credit card is given.
Assuming they have 4 million members, they have 400,000 people with criminal records married etc in their database. These people will show up in search results, and a paid member will be able to contact a free member.
The only way they can cover their asses if they put a big disclaimer on every non paying members profile that there has been no background check done on this person.
What good are background checks if the only cover 2-5% of all registered members? There are going to be a lot of legal issues.
Gentlemen,
With all my respect, you overestimate the ability of state reps to comprehend how the online dating works not even mentioning that it’s a totally unrealistic goal to make them say free members from paid ones. Counting percentage of coverage can’t also be an argument for state people. They think at large (at least they think so). Wouldn’t you agree?
The question is much bigger then the details of the online dating technology. And it’s larger but simpler at the same time. Something like:
– will the legislation improve security of users involved in meeting each other via online dating providers? And the answer is NO for a number of reasons including feasibility, limited access to criminal records, time sensitivity and so on.
– why online dating but not any other industry that brings 2 people together intentionally or unintentionally? It may be newspapers with their classified, auction site like eBay, chat rooms of all portals like Yahoo and MSN and so on.
– why criminal background check but not any other kind of check, like mental health check or STI check?
This kind of logic must be suitable for state reps.
There has been a long discussion at the lawmakers level some 50 years ago about the use of seat belts and/or airbags for a very similar reason. The corner stone was safety and security. It took 5 long year of tests and detailed analysis by the government assigned road safety institutions to figure our what works and why. And only then the legislation has passed making seat belts mandatory. Why should it be a shortcut now 50 years later?
This news puts American lawmakers supporting the True initiative on the same page with the last dictatorship in Europe
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2005/12/14/ap2391504.html
Perfect! Thank you, True guys, thank you very much! Why don’t you move to Belarus with all your stuff? You’d be welcomed there with your tendency to restrictions, limitations and mediocrity that consitutes a dictatorship.
Markus, Let me just say that I am not at all a fan of True.com or their self-serving push for background check legislation. But in their defense, I know without a doubt that once a profile has been marked as having failed a background check it will be excluded from search results from then on. This still does not prevent a paid member that has passed the background check from contacting a non-paid member who has not yet been screened; which is exactly what they tell people on their website. People who contact you have undergone the background check, or at least the persona that they put forth as themselves has been checked. 😉
-Lee Phillips
Application Developer/Contract Consultant