MIAMI HERALD — Dec 18 — Beth, a leggy brunette and successful lawyer who lives in Dallas, says she enjoys clubbing and rollerblading. But some of these women don't even exist according to a Coral Springs businessman who alleges that Yahoo Personals posts fictitious profiles, date bait. Lawmakers in Texas, Virginia, Michigan, California and Florida are weighing legislation that could make it a crime to misrepresent oneself on a dating site, or fail to inform consumers that they offer background screening for their customers. Analysts say matchmaking sites believe that they can patrol themselves. Most of them use 'report this profile' options to report problem subscribers to a team of 'abuse' monitors who look for risqué photographs, insincere profiles, and users looking for a place to advertise their own business. Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch, concedes that there is endless potential for abusing the rules. But, he said, that doesn't mean the site owners should be subject to government monitoring. He calls the suits against Match and Yahoo 'ridiculous.' 'If you were sitting in a product development meeting [at Match or Yahoo] and said, 'Hey, let's just have someone do that,' (send bogus emails), that person would be fired,' Brooks said.
Category: YahooPersonals
Desperately Seeking Suckers
MACLEANS CANADA — Dec 14 — Last month, two lawsuits were filed in match.com and Yahoo Personals alleging that the companies entice users into continuing to use the services with fake romantic emails. The damage could spread from match.com and Yahoo Personals to the dozens of other online dating companies playing Cupid. Both match.com and Yahoo Personals fervently deny the charges. In its defence, match.com has acquired a signed affidavit from Autumn Marzec, the woman it allegedly hired, swearing she was not an employee of the company. "The lawsuit is completely baseless," asserts Roldan.
Mark Brooks: Large online dating companies, Yahoo and Match.com, date bait? C'mon. They have far more to lose than gain. Online personals companies live and die by word of mouth these days. These suits are indeed extremely bad for the industry. I believe some small online dating companies may well have succumb to the temptation of sending date bait emails…but not the big boys. It's absolutely unthinkable. Online dating companies 'bubble up' profiles in search results when they are nearing the renewal date so those users receive more emails and winks during that period.
Yahoo Acquires Social Network Del.icio.us
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS — Dec 10 — In its latest acquisition of a social networking service, Internet powerhouse Yahoo on Friday devoured del.icio.us Inc., a startup that enables people to more easily compile and share their favorite content on the Web. More than 300,000 users have signed up for the service since del.icio.us’ inception two years ago. Yahoo’s other recent social networking acquisitions include a popular photo-tagging service, Flickr, and an event-planning service, Upcoming.org.
Nude ‘Profile’ Yahoo Suit Dismissed
CNET NEWS — Dec 9 — Cecilia Barnes sued Yahoo after ex-boyfriend allegedly posted a personal profile with nude photos of Barnes and her work contact information. A US District Judge in Oregon ruled on Nov 8 dismissing the case. The judge ruled that a string of precedents, including the 1997 Zeran v. America Online decision, immunized Yahoo from such lawsuits. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET
Mark Brooks: …but she will sue the boyfriend. Seems more fitting.
Dating Game Changes After 40
USA TODAY — Dec 1 — Of almost 127 million Americans age 40 and over, more than a third are unattached. They're either casualties of the divorce explosion (13%); widowed (11%); or never married (8%). Match.com says registrations by people over 50 are up 340% since 2000. Those over 50 account for 21% of visitors to Yahoo Personals. A Yahoo Personals survey released in September found that 51% of men and 56% of women say it's acceptable for a potential date to be up to 10 years younger. So more older women are taking a cue from celebrities who are linked with men who are years or even decades their junior. "Women of a certain age want to date but don't necessarily want to be married," Carr says. "Women don't feel middle-aged. They feel there's a long life ahead." FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Online Dating Sites Accused of Deception
ASSOCIATED PRESS — Nov 25 — Match is charged with sending a female employee out on a date with a male subscriber as "date bait" to keep him signed up and Yahoo Personals with creating fake profiles to entice subscribers. Match.com denied the allegations and obtained an affidavit from the woman in question, who declared she never worked for the company. The suit says Yahoo posts fake profiles and alleges Yahoo also sent him fake "new match" messages when his monthly subscription was up for renewal. After months of failing to meet a potential match, he became suspicious and discovered the same picture of a woman being posted for different cities under different names. Trish McDermott, chief matchmaker at Engage.com and a Match's former VP Romance, said she never saw any type of consumer fraud during her decade at Match.com. She added that the majority of personals sites, including Yahoo and Match.com, employ a business model she believes fails consumers. It's not clear who is a member and who isn't in the pay-to-respond model, in which a user must join a service to respond to an e-mail sent by a potential match but cannot post a profile, McDermott said. If someone e-mails 100 people and gets only one response, he or she could conclude that most of the profiles are fake when they actually show non-subscribers who can't respond to e-mail, she said.
Mark Brooks: Your comments please…
Online Dating Sites Accused of Deception
ASSOCIATED PRESS — Nov 25 — Match is charged with sending a female employee out on a date with a male subscriber as "date bait" to keep him signed up and Yahoo Personals with creating fake profiles to entice subscribers. Match.com denied the allegations and obtained an affidavit from the woman in question, who declared she never worked for the company. The suit says Yahoo posts fake profiles and alleges Yahoo also sent him fake "new match" messages when his monthly subscription was up for renewal. After months of failing to meet a potential match, he became suspicious and discovered the same picture of a woman being posted for different cities under different names. Trish McDermott, chief matchmaker at Engage.com and a Match's former VP Romance, said she never saw any type of consumer fraud during her decade at Match.com. She added that the majority of personals sites, including Yahoo and Match.com, employ a business model she believes fails consumers. It's not clear who is a member and who isn't in the pay-to-respond model, in which a user must join a service to respond to an e-mail sent by a potential match but cannot post a profile, McDermott said. If someone e-mails 100 people and gets only one response, he or she could conclude that most of the profiles are fake when they actually show non-subscribers who can't respond to e-mail, she said.
Mark Brooks: Your comments please…
The Truth About Online Dating
Online Daters Sue Match.com, Yahoo
REUTERS — Nov 18 — Match.com is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. In a separate suit, Yahoo's personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its website to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do. The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The Yahoo suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organized crime. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Small players, one man bands and new sites that are scrambling to get to critical mass may well send bogus emails. Larger, established top ten players don't. Date bait emails are very bad practice. As an industry we should work to stamp it out. These services don't 'send' their employees on dates. However, I've not heard of many dating services banning their employees from using the services they work on.
Online Daters Sue Match.com, Yahoo
REUTERS — Nov 18 — Match.com is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. In a separate suit, Yahoo's personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its website to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do. The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The Yahoo suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organized crime. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY
Mark Brooks: Small players, one man bands and new sites that are scrambling to get to critical mass may well send bogus emails. Larger, established top ten players don't. Date bait emails are very bad practice. As an industry we should work to stamp it out. These services don't 'send' their employees on dates. However, I've not heard of many dating services banning their employees from using the services they work on.