United Kingdom

Dating site eHarmony has found that quarantine helped solidify new relationships at an accelerated speed as people partnered and navigated lockdown together. The company also found that it helped long-term couples feel more connected, too. 

Relate, a non-profit that provides mental health and counseling services, worked with eHarmony to gather the data. According to Good Housekeeping, they found that 63% of respondents say their relationship feels stronger after quarantining together, and 58% say they know they want to be with their partner forever.

As a growing number of people began social distancing, they are turning to dating apps for connection – and specifically, logging on to Tinder.

Tinder reported that it received over 3 billion swipes in one day – Sunday March 28th – the highest number ever recorded in the app’s eight-year history.

The company also noted in a press release that daily conversations have increased about 20% across the globe, and the average length of conversations is 25% longer. In the US, conversations have been up an average of 19% and the average length of a conversation is 8% longer.

Bumble is shutting down gay dating app Chappy, part of the suite of dating apps under parent company Magic Lab. Bumble will integrate the service into its own app, effective February 28th.

According to Culture Map Austin, Bumble is encouraging Chappy users to download Bumble and try it out, offering them a week of its premium service for free. Chappy is no longer displaying profiles so essentially the search function is turned off. By the end of February, all of Chappy’s user information will disappear from the app.

Chappy posted an FAQ about the closure on its website, stating: “We’re joining Bumble because we have the opportunity to take what we’ve built together here to the next level by creating a space for healthy and safe connections across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Bumble is committed to fighting all kinds of inequality, and we’re excited to land our spaceship safely in the Bumble Hive.”

Facebook has been forced to delay the launch of its signature dating service in Europe after failing to provide the European Union data regulator with a required assessment of privacy risks to users. 

According to CNet, The Irish Data Protection Commission raised concerns about Facebook’s privacy practices, and whether the company complied with the European Union’s data protection rules, which are more stringent than those in the U.S. 

Under these new rules, companies considered to be “high risk” in the handling of personal information of users are required to conduct a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) prior to being approved. This includes a written report addressing and outlining potential privacy risks, which the agency said Facebook did not provide, even after the agency sent regulators to Facebook’s Dublin office to gather the required documentation, according to Tech Crunch. 

Image: Bumble

Bumble is fighting ghosting once again – this time with a marketing campaign whose launch coincides with Halloween.

“Ghosting” is a dating term that refers to two people who have been messaging or seeing each other, and one suddenly stops texting or returning calls, leaving their date to wonder what happened and why they “disappeared.”

The tie-in with Halloween is clever but ghosting itself can be very painful for those on the receiving end. Many daters have experience with ghosting and know how it can ruin the dating experience to be left in the dark. When someone is ghosted, it’s easy to assign blame and make up stories as to what happened, or worse – they can lose confidence as they consider how they might have fallen short - which is counter-productive to finding the right person.

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has secured a 4 million pound dividend payout from parent company Magic Lab, who saw record earnings thanks to its star dating app.

According to The Telegraph, the Bumble windfall is the result of a dividend payout of 20 million pounds from its parent company, and Herd owns about 20% of Bumble. Magic Lab saw earnings skyrocket at the end of 2018 to about 270 million pounds, up 51 percent from the year before. This quarter, the company reported a loss of about 4.8 million pounds.

Bumble’s revenue made up about 48 percent of Magic Lab’s overall business.