THE MERCURY NEWS – Dec 4 – The Santa Cruz county district attorney's office is leveling consumer protection violation allegations against Match.com in a new lawsuit seeking $10M in penalties. "Match.com engaged in a pattern and practice of designing a signup and cancellation process intended to hook in consumers and make it difficult for them to extricate themselves from the contract," the District Attorney's Office release states.
Month: December 2020
Android Apps Still Vulnerable to a Major Bug
ITPRO.CO.UK – Dec 4 – Security researchers have found major Android apps used by hundreds of millions of people, such as Grindr, Bumble, OKCupid are vulnerable to a known flaw that could give attackers access to the app users' phones and data. The security flaw is in Google's widely used Play core library, which lets developers push in-app updates and new feature modules to their Android apps. Google fixed the flaw in April 2020, but the app developers must also install the updated Play core library in their apps to eliminate the threat. Many developers have not yet done this.
Dating App BLK: Black Women Deserve Better
PAPER MAGAZINE – Dec 4 – Launched in the summer of 2017, BLK was created by the Match Group with young Black singles specifically in mind. Since then, BLK's been downloaded ~4M times and has become the fastest growing app in the Match Group family, which the app's Head of Marketing and Brand Jonathan Kirkland said "speaks to the fact that BLK was something that the community needed and wanted." Amidst this summer's Black Lives Matter protests, BLK's main focus has shifted from "just dating" to building a community hub where Black singles can connect and feel supported. Kirkland added that one of their biggest goals now is ensuring that BLK continues to be an app where Black women in particular feel safe, respected and desired, before citing a 2014 OkCupid study which found that Black women were liked at far lower rates than women of other races.
The Devil & 2020 Go on a Date in a New Match Ad
BUSINESS TODAY – Dec 3 – Match.com released a hilarious ad which shows what happened this year was a result of the union of Satan with his hell bound lover '2020'. The ad saw a collaboration between Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift. Reynold's company 'Maximum Effort' created the ad along with Swift providing a re-recording of her super hit 2008 song 'Love Story' as the background music.
by Anshula Raj
See full article at Business Today
Mark Brooks: On so many levels, this is just pure brilliant. What a hoot! Dating TV advertising at its best. It's controversial, polarizing, resonant, colorful, memorable, and poignant.
Matrimony.com Stock Hits Fresh 52-week High
BUSINESS STANDARD – Dec 3 – Shares of Matrimony.com hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 795, surging 10% on the BSE in the intra-day trade on Thursday. ~500,155 equity shares, representing 2.2% stake of the company, changed hands via bulk deal on the BSE, exchange data show. The names of the buyers and sellers could not be ascertained immediately. Matrimony.com is one of the leading consumer Internet companies in India, managing brands such as BharatMatrimony, CommunityMatrimony and EliteMatrimony. The Company delivers matchmaking and marriage related services to users in India and the Indian diaspora. In the past two weeks, the stock has rallied 27% after SBI Mutual Fund (MF) bought an additional 744,279 shares, or 3.3% stake, in Matrimony.com through its various schemes.
BlueCity Q3 Results 2020: Revenue up 43%
GLOBE NEWSWIRE – Dec 3 – Blued's Q3 revenues reached RMB298M ($43.8M), up 47.3% YOY. Net loss was RMB138M ($20M), compared with net loss of RMB7.1M in Q3 2019. Monthly active users on the Blued mobile app reached 6.3M, up 7% YOY. Total paying users on the Blued app reached 494K, up 43.8% YOY. Revenues from live streaming services reached RMB255M ($37.6M), up 42.9% YOY. Revenues from membership services reached RMB18.2M ($2.7M), up 56.4% YOY. Blued is currently the largest gay social network app in the world. Launched in 2012, the free app now counts 40M users with the majority still in its country of origin, China.
Bumble Report: How Single Indians Dated in 2020 Amid the Pandemic
MASHABLE – Dec 3 – The pandemic has led to a paradigm shift in people's lifestyle where everyone is now working, socializing, and dating from home. Bumble has recently conducted a study to understand how dating in 2020 has been redefined and what the trends have been like for daters in India this year. 40% of daters in India said that they are no longer confident about dating successfully and 70% of single Indians say they are not comfortable navigating dating in 2020, while one in two claim they are ready to go on a date in-person. Bumble daters in India are increasingly open to virtual dating with 1 in 5 up for using Video Chat heading into the New Year.
Bumble Teams up With By Rotation to Tackle Virtual Date Outfit Dilemmas
BUSTLE – Dec 3 – According to Bumble, 1 in 4 users have been on a virtual date during lockdown. To help end virtual date dressing dilemmas, Bumble has teamed up with fashion sharing app By Rotation. They've enlisted celebrity stylist Leah Abbott, who is behind Jorja Smith's look, to curate an exclusive 'Bumble Edit' for By Rotation, a clothing rental service considered as the 'AirBnB' for clothes.
TTAB Refuses ‘Political Tinder’ Trademark
LAW360 – Dec 1 – Siding with the Match Group, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is refusing to let "Political Tinder" be registered as a trademark. The board said the trademark sought by an entity called RLP Ventures LLC would be confusingly similar to Match Group's Tinder. Political Tinder is not a dating app but a website featuring information about political issues.