BRUSSELS TIMES – May 8 – Brussels' correctional court has ruled against dating site RichMeetBeautiful, declaring it guilty of "encouraging sexual immorality or prostitution". The site's owner, Sigurd Vedal, was dealt a suspended six-month prison sentence and ordered to pay ~€200K fine. The ruling follows a 2017 lawsuit after the site targeted students at the Free University of Brussels with controversial ads. The court slapped an additional €240K fine on the site's parent company, Digisec Media Limited, ordering it to pay an additional amount to the university for damages. The site remains blocked in Belgium.
Month: May 2019
The Match Group Released Q1 Results
AdultFriendFinder Data Breach Suit Kicked to Arbitration
LAW360 – May 6 – A class action seeking to hold AdultFriendFinder.com accountable for its 2016 data breach that allegedly released the personal information of 339M users must go to arbitration, a California federal judge ordered this week.
Apple and Google Removed Three Dating Apps for COPPA Violation
CNN – May 7 – Apple and Google removed three dating apps from their app stores after the US government said the apps could expose children to sexual predators. Meet24, FastMeet and Meet4U were in potential violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. COPPA prevents websites and apps from collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. The three apps are owned by a Ukraine-based company called Wildec LLC. It allowed minors 13-years-old and younger to be contacted by other users, contradicting the apps' privacy policies, which claimed they would follow necessary laws, including COPPA.
Lumen Launches New Social Feature to Combat Loneliness
German Group Dating App Go Crush Attracts New Angel Investor
EU STARTUPS – May 6 – Frankfurt-based startup Go Crush is a dating app that allows people to meet in groups. Dr. Jost Schwaner, the ex-CEO of Elitepartner, has just invested a mid-five-figure sum in Go Crush. The team plans to raise another €500K in September, after raising €250K last year. Founded in 2017, Go Crush so far has ~50k registered users in Germany.
by Mary Loritz
See full article at EU Startups
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
The Big Business of Loneliness
VOX – May 6 – Coworking spaces, friendship apps, and adult dorms are selling human connection. Tribe is a co-living space with 7 locations in Brooklyn whose motto is "We help you make friends" which offers furnished rooms. However, "the product really is the people." WeWork was recently valued at $47 billion and makes facilitating connection an explicit part of its mission…to rebuild social fabric and human connection. Hey Vina is an app to help women develop new friendships and was founded in 2015. A few months later, Bumble launched Bumble BFF, which does the same thing. For new mothers to make mom friends, there's Peanut. For dog owners, there's Meet My Dog. Then there's Meetup. Loneliness is such a tragedy – and a trap. Hypervigilant, the lonely brain detects social threats everywhere, spurring further isolation.
Badoo Is Looking For a Co-Founder Of Its New Live-streaming Product
LINKEDIN – May 6 – Badoo is looking for an individual with experience content sourcing, live-streaming and launching a commercially successful product.
This post also appears on InternetDatingJobs
The Match Group Share Price Is Up 451%
SIMPLY WALL ST – May 5 – Match Group shares are 451% higher than three years ago, up 17% over the last quarter. Prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. Match Group was able to grow its EPS at 31% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. This EPS growth is lower than the 77% average annual increase in the share price. This indicates that the market is feeling more optimistic on the stock, after the last few years of progress. It is quite common to see investors become enamoured with a business, after a few years of solid progress.
Serena Williams and Bumble Select New Women-Owned Businesses for Investment
