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Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

nytimes.com

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Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#221

Post by gruturo »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #209
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

OKCupid doesn't have fake profiles, right?

I met my previous girlfriend on OkC, with whom I was for 3 years, and the current one, 1 year and counting, hopefully a lot of counting.

There are definitely fewer people than e.g. Tinder, but they tend to be a lot more real vs spammers / scammers / engineered profiles designed to keep you in.

Most Tinder matches were bots, most OkC matches were actual people. Of course this is with a sample size of 1, in Germany. Your mileage may vary.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#222

Post by strenholme »

fortran77 wrote: post #55
chongli wrote: post #20

I think it's a fatal flaw in the dating site business model, to be honest. Their incentive is for you to stay on the site for as long as possible. If you could find a relationship quickly and then they would leave the site quickly. This would reduce the amount of ad and subscription revenue, in addition to reducing the size of the pool of "potential matches", discouraging those who have more trouble finding someone.

It would be nice to have a dating site where potential matches were verified, including height, weight, and photo. Perhaps have them visit a kiosk in a participating business to get a photo taken from a standard angle (no "myspace" angles) along with a verified height and weight (stand on a scale!)

Ignoring the expense of those kioskes, for this to be fair, we would need to verify height, weight, photo, marital/relationship status, and income (paycheck stubs will need to notarized).

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#223

Post by ausbah »

LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

I've liked Bumble's solution, make it so only woman can start a conversation if matched with someone.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#224

Post by LunaSea »

ausbah wrote: post #223
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

I've liked Bumble's solution, make it so only woman can start a conversation if matched with someone.

And typically they don't or just write "hi" and wait for the men to answer.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#225

Post by mcv »

naniwaduni wrote: post #78
queercode wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no more presumptuous to assume OP is a straight male.

In the absence of other evidence, gay male is about two to four bits of entropy more presumptuous than straight male.

That doesn't make it okay to assume everybody is straight. Some people really are gay.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#226

Post by dabbledash »

LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

I think the users on eHarmony are mostly women.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#227

Post by unicornfinder »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #209
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

OKCupid doesn't have fake profiles, right?

I'd say OKcupid is better than most (the higher barrier to entry i.e. having to answer questions) helps to a degree but there's still plenty of fake / scammer accounts.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#230

Post by cyborgx7 »

1024core wrote: post #67

Back when I was single, I was on a dozen dating sites. It was frustrating as heck to keep getting led on by fake profiles. eHarmony is the worst: they actually sold my email address to spammers. How do I know this? I have my own domain, and use a unique (hard to guess) email address for each site I have to give an email address to. So it was trivial to nail eHarmony as the culprit. Someone has already linked to the O…

>Basically, the market is ripe for a respectful dating site. But OKCupid started this way; and in the end they sold out. What makes you think you won't sell out when the money is right?

Seems like it's a problem that can't really be solved by a profit seeking company, and has to be left to a non-profit foundation or something like that.

Image hosting has a similar problem. Imgur used to be the "good" image hoster, but they have been slipping immensly. In the case of something like image hosting I could see publicly funded infrastructure solving the problem. Not sure how comfortable I'd be with this in the case of dating.

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