CHEDDAR – Aug 3 – Spark Networks SE became the second largest dating company in North America after closing its deal to acquire Zoosk. Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Spark Networks, said: “With the acquisition of Zoosk we became now almost three times bigger than we used to be. So, that unlocked all the potential being really large in this market.”
Month: August 2019
How ViDA, the Virtual Dating Assistant, Works
VICE – Aug 3 – When Facebook launched in 2004, Scott Valdez used it to find women who attended the University of Georgia. He sent them dozens of messages using one of five pickup lines, and then recorded the women’s responses and response rate in a spreadsheet. He applied his algorithm to POF, and hired a guy on Craigslist to manage his POF profile for him. His personal experiment laid the groundwork for his matchmaking service, called ViDA Select. It’s now the biggest virtual dating service of its kind. Dozens of remote consultants – from a stylist, to a photo analyst, to an app-swiper – work together to curate and manage users online dating profiles for them. They even have a ghostwriter, who flirts with their matches on their behalf. The end goal is to set up a date for their clients.
by Caroline Pahl & Evan McMorris-Santorro
See full article at Vice News
The Rise of Women-Focused Dating Apps in India
by Hansa Verma
See full article at Indian Express
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Lumen, Dating App for 50+, Promises to Protect Its Users From Scams
FOX5 – Aug 3 – In the dating world, those over 50 are top target for scammers. That's why Lumen, the dating app for users 50+, is using AI to protect users, making sure people are who they say they are.
Digital Identity Startup Yoti Raises £8M
TECH CRUNCH – Aug 2 – Yoti, the London startup offering a digital identity platform and app that lets users prove who they say they are when accessing services or making age-verified purchases, has raised £8M in additional funding. The startup had raised £65M in total since being founded in 2014. Yoti has formed a variety of partnerships including Heathrow Airport, which is working with Yoti to explore biometric travel for passengers; NCR, which is using Yoti to improve age-verification at self-checkouts; and Yubo, which is deploying Yoti to verify the age of users and to "safeguard" young people online.
by Steve O'Hear
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Bumble Stumbles: State Policy Interests Override Dating App’s Contractual Forum
JDSUPRA – Aug 1 – E-commerce providers usually specify a choice of law and a choice of venue in their customer agreements, and those provisions are typically honored by courts. But in certain situations, state interests in protecting its residents may override these agreed-up dispute forums, according to a recent case involving the dating service Bumble. Bumble is based in Austin, Texas and the United Kingdom. And its terms of service state that the customer's relationship with Bumble "are governed and interpreted by the laws of the State of New York." So when a class action suit was brought against Bumble in California, based on two California laws, Bumble moved to dismiss on the grounds that only New York laws, not California laws, governed its dealings with customers. The California laws raised by the plaintiffs were a Dating Service law, which allows dating service subscribers a cooling-off period, and an Automatic Renewal law, which imposes limits on subscriptions with automatic renewals and payments. Because New York allows automatic renewals for contracts lasting less than a month, the court found that California law applied, despite the contractual New York law provision.
How Much Personal Data Can Dating Apps Access?
OBSERVER – Aug 1 – According to research done by the site Datingroo, online daters are giving away as much user data and security information as they possibly can. "Most users are not aware that with installing a dating app, they are permitting access to their data like photos, camera, microphone, location, identity, phone contacts, network connection and more," said Suzana Jaramaz, PR and content marketing manager for Datingroo. According to the Google Play Store, FaceApp has even less access to a user's data than the most popular dating apps. Datingroo's findings show that dating apps are far more attractive to hackers and cybercriminals than FaceApp because these apps have a greater amount of user data.
Chappy and Bumble Team up for Pride 2019
