Match.com Responds To Being Sued

Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch got in contact with Greg Blatt, the new CEO of Match.com to get a comment regarding the recent New York federal court suit filed by Sean McGinn (see Story) According to Blatt in a statement he made to OPW:

Match.com’s continued success depends upon the success of our members in making online connections and turning them into meaningful relationships offline. The allegation that we would deceive our subscribers by encouraging them to connect with inactive members therefore makes no sense and is contradicted by our 14-year record and the hundreds of thousands of members who find someone special on Match.com every year. We understand that finding romance, offline or online, can at times be emotional and personal, and we wish Mr. McGinn well in his search. But his lawsuit is without merit, and we will defend it vigorously.

It is true, Match.com for the most part does not let you know when you are searching that the dating profiles you are viewing are from paying members or not. The only time you can tell for sure is if the member has the Profile Highlight feature (it is highlighted in red). Most other paid dating sites (like eHarmony) operate the same way. What Match.com does do is attempt to return the most active members on the site that fit within your search criteria. Most active users are either the ones paying for the service to find a partner or new to the service looking to see what Match.com offers. What Match hopes with this strategy is when a paid user messages a new user, it will entice them to signup.

Despite how this suit goes, I bet Match will speed up the process of getting the new Platinum Membership out to all markets (Story). It's almost like they saw this suit coming since the Platinum Membership allows paid members to receive messages from any member they have contacted, whether or not they are a free or paid member of the dating service.