Is eHarmony Scientifically Proven?

eHarmony has gotten into legal trouble again. Lynda Kelly and Miranda Soegi of California have initiated a federal class action lawsuit which claims that eHarmony does not have a scientifically proven system for matching members. Lynda and Miranda believe eHarmony have been misrepresenting the services they provide. They feel they did not receive the service they had paid for.

eHarmony have kept their matching algorithm a closely guarded secret while other sites like Chemistry (see Story) may slowly begin allowing us a peek inside. eHarmony has patents on their matching system so their multi-million dollar investment should be protected if they ever wanted to release more information about it ( U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,568 and 7,454,357). Check out the comments here for more of a discussion on eHarmony's matching system, including some comments from matching experts like Helen Fisher.

I don't think this lawsuit will get to far. eHarmony has been sued before so I am sure their Terms and Conditions have been made air tight by their legal experts. With dating sites that have a scientific matching system, I think what members get confused and angry about is, how loosely the matching algorithm gets applied. I have a feeling that the longer you are on the dating service, some of these sites (to enable to send you more matches) may lower the requirements for a match. Another thing members have to realize is the matches you do receive on these type of dating sites are from both free and paying members. Usually paying members can reply to you, free members cannot.

Misrepresentation is a problem on the internet in general. How many websites are you on in a day that claim to be the biggest or most popular? You will also find a lot of sites that claim to be free, while in fact they are not.

For more information on the story here is a copy of the legal complaint in pdf format.