FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data • Hacker News Board

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#111

Post by lolc » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #66

stanford_labrat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's not really a way around it. naive question: why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? i understand that the current business model is much more lucrative...but i feel like with how fed up people are with the inability of modern online dating to provide quality, long-las…

> why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? You've identified the problem but failed to adequately describe a solution. The matchmakers need to make money, even to just pay for the costs of running the service. A monthly subscription to use the service creates the perverse incentive to give bad matches. A one-time fee makes unsuccessful users feel cheated out of their money. A "pay us once you…

What I want to see is a dating service where I can pledge some money to some charity. Everybody on the site can check what I've pledged, and I can release it anytime. The service can take their cut, fine.

Now when I meet somebody through the service, and we think it's serious, we can release that money. And we can check whether the other did too!

Sure there will still be profiles with people that don't pledge, because they're just testing the waters, or poor, or scammers. Whatever. Point is I can send a signal that at some point I want to be done with the service, and then pay them for that.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#112

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

loverboy69 wrote: post #98

crazygringo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Match didn't buy Tinder. IAC had owned Match.com for a while and then developed Tinder from scratch. Match didn't buy Tinder. Tinder was always part of the same company from day one.

You're right, and you're wrong. IAC owned both Match and HatchLabs (which developed Tinder in 2012). They were later merged into one entity, and even later spun off from IAC altogether. They were "part of the same company" in that giant mega-corp super conglomerate owned both, but practically they were fully separate entities when Tinder was created. Match didn't buy Tinder, but it was merged with Tinder by parent co…

I mean, I was trying to keep it simple. :) I suppose it all comes down to what you mean by "fully separate entities"... but at the end of the day it was all under IAC. The corporate control and reporting structure went up to the CEO and board of IAC. Hatch Labs was an incubator IAC created specifically for developing things like Tinder. Yes Tinder got reshuffled and eventually it was all spun off but Tinder started under the same roof as Match. It wasn't bought.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#113

Post by miki123211 » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #57

mlmonkey wrote: post #25

All of these sites do shady shit. I'm so glad I'm no longer single. I signed up for eHarmony with a unique email address dedicated to that site. After wasting 6 months, I chose to delete my account. Lo and behold, soon spam started to show up on this account, as if the floodgates had been opened. It was a unique account that I had not used anywhere else just for this specific reason, and my hunch was justified.

They were good 15 years ago. As with all things, it went to shit when Match.com started consolidating everything and the bean counters realized that a quality product was not as profitable. Surprised it took this long to get litigation. So many people complaining about how crap dating sites are, but no one thought to realize the site itself was the problem and fell into the whole "looksmaxxing" grift. Some people rea…

Dating sites are an extremely hard business to be in.

On a traditional (social) network, whether that'd be Facebook, the railroad or the Bloomberg Terminal, you have the network effect. The more users you get, the more interesting the network becomes, which means yet more users want to join. This is a positive feedback loop.

The entire point of a dating site is to find somebody to leave that site with. Statistically speaking (and at that scale, statistics is the only thing that matters), attractive users[1] are more likely to find a match and leave, while unattractive users are likely to stay (or come back) and keep looking. As time goes on, the fraction of unattractive users will keep increasing. You can fix this with enough growth, but exponential growth can't go on forever due to population size constraints. And once you get into that state, your growth will be constrained further, which just puts you onto a downward slide into hell.

And then there's the question of revenue. It's hard to scalably do deals where the user must pay you when they find a relationship on the site (like the matchmaking services of old used to do), so subscriptions or one-time fees are your only options. Neither of them are great, subscriptions encourage you to keep users on the site (which puts your goal opposite to what the users want), one-time fees work against the network effect and constrain growth.

[1] By "attractiveness", I mean something much wider than just visual / physical attractiveness. An ability to enter and maintain a successful long-term relationship in general.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#114

Post by gopher_space » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #46

Forgeties79 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say “$50+/plate” are you saying the dinner itself or each dish? Either way, (in the US) that is not considered a particularly expensive meal for an adult taking someone on a date. In 2026 you should expect $100-$200 bill with drinks basically anywhere. Going out to dinner is not cheap. $100 is actually a great deal unless we’re talking chain restaurants. If you don’t want to spend that every first date, then…

Fair question. When I think "$50/plate", I'm thinking $50 for just the dinner main course, not including drinks, appetizer, or dessert. > Do something more casual first time around. Bar, coffee/walk, whatever. The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date. They want to be wined and dined and treated like a princess right…

> The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date.

You're using the casual meeting as a filter for certain personalities.

There are plenty of people out there who prefer a more formalized approach to dating, and good for them. You have a different preference. Being selective is good because it saves both of you time and there are no hard feelings.

> They want to be wined and dined and treated like a princess right off the bat. They think they're a prize to be won simply by being a woman.

Thinking about people you aren't interested in will just grind your gears.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#115

Post by miki123211 » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

stanford_labrat wrote: post #54

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met my current wife on OKC in 2010, before online dating became an utter cesspool. I've been out of the dating scene for 16 years now, but based on what I see on social media, I think online dating sucks today for three reasons. 1. Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they want to get laid. They're not looking for a relationship, they're looking for a hook-up, and they're not honest about their int…

> They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's not really a way around it. naive question: why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? i understand that the current business model is much more lucrative...but i feel like with how fed up people are with the inability of modern online dating to provide quality, long-las…

There should be a "dating tax."

If you get married, there should be a "what app did you meet on" question on the marriage application. Apps should get $10/month for each relationship they create, for as long as the partners live or until they get divorced.

This would encourage app makers to "get rid" of their users as fast as possible, getting them into successful, long-term relationships, instead of keeping them on the apps for as long as possible to milk subscription revenue.

Considering the fertility crisis that most western countries are facing, this is overwhelmingly likely to be long-term revenue-positive for governments.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#116

Post by Forgeties79 » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #114

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair question. When I think "$50/plate", I'm thinking $50 for just the dinner main course, not including drinks, appetizer, or dessert. > Do something more casual first time around. Bar, coffee/walk, whatever. The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date. They want to be wined and dined and treated like a princess right…

> The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date. You're using the casual meeting as a filter for certain personalities. There are plenty of people out there who prefer a more formalized approach to dating, and good for them. You have a different preference. Being selective is good because it saves both of you time and th…

Especially imaginary people fitting a caricature

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#117

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #42

yieldcrv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> misogynistic the definition requires "contempt", but it has been diluted to mean any statement that merely points out of corrosive behavior additionally, many of the statements are actually class based and not inherently gendered, for example, we would call out a man trying to date for free meals too, but since its seen in contexts about women, its stated in reference to that gender, masquerading as contempt and mi…

Countries are starting to criminalize ‘misogyny’ which includes interrupting women during meetings. I think Brazil is in the process of enacting such laws. These are usually being bootstrapped on civil right and hate speech laws.

The misogyny law was enacted only a few days ago. It criminalizes "disinformation about women, even if true". You read that right.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#118

Post by Aurornis » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #23

tetromino_ wrote: post #5

Key quote: > Even though it did not have any business relationship with OkCupid, the third-party data recipient asked the company to share large datasets of OkCupid user photos and related data with it because OkCupid’s founders were financial investors in the third party. OkCupid provided the third party with access to nearly three million OkCupid user photos as well as location and other information without placing…

I'm wondering if this means 3 million copyright violations that could be litigated in civil court.

Nearly every app that accepts user-generated content includes an agreement that you give them a license to use that content.

It's basically required for those apps to function. No platform would exist very long if users could upload content and then sue the platform for hosting it.

The agreements usually include a clause about allowing them to sub-license it.

So you still retain the copyright to the photos, but you can't sue them for using it.

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#119

Post by AntiDyatlov » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 11:26 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #111

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? You've identified the problem but failed to adequately describe a solution. The matchmakers need to make money, even to just pay for the costs of running the service. A monthly subscription to use the service creates the perverse incentive to give bad matches. A one-time fee makes unsuccessful users feel cheated out of their money. A "pay us once you…

What I want to see is a dating service where I can pledge some money to some charity. Everybody on the site can check what I've pledged, and I can release it anytime. The service can take their cut, fine. Now when I meet somebody through the service, and we think it's serious, we can release that money. And we can check whether the other did too! Sure there will still be profiles with people that don't pledge, becaus…

How can the service know that the users have really entered into a relationship?

Re: FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

#120

Post by platevoltage » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 11:26 PM UTC

justonceokay wrote: post #14

john_strinlai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OkCupid gave users different prices based on whether they selected male or female for their profile. never heard or thought about this before, but it kind of makes sense for a dating app. its one of the only levers available to them to attempt any sort of balance between user genders. it sucks for everyone (including the users) if the male:female ratio is like 20:1 or whatever. i would rather pay a couple of extra…

If your main problem with a dating app is that men pay more than women, then you’re not going to like being in a relationship very much at all :)

It's not 1965 anymore.