WASHINGTON POST – Dec 7 – 2018 should have been a record year for Grindr, the leading gay dating app, which touts ~27M users. Instead, the app has received backlash for one blunder after another. Early this year, the Kunlun Group's buyout of Grindr raised alarm among intelligence experts that the Chinese government might be able to gain access to the Grindr profiles of American users. Then in the spring, Grindr faced scrutiny after reports indicated the app had a security issue that could expose users' precise locations and that the company had shared sensitive data on its users' HIV status with external software vendors. Last week, news broke that Scott Chen, the app's straight-identified president, may not fully support marriage equality. In the past several years, Grindr users have widely reported that spambots and spoofed accounts run rampant. Earlier this year, a massive study by the Center for Humane Technology found that Grindr is the No. 1 app that leaves users feeling unhappy. Among its major competitors, Grindr has the lowest score on the Apple App store: a lowly two stars.
by Jon Shadel
See full article at Washington Post
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