Recipient
Match.com

The Match dating service is the recipient of the 2020 Editor's Top Pick - Paid award. From a paid dating service perspective Match has always been in the top spot in terms of number of active members. Thanks to smart marking TV campaigns singles continue to flock to the service with the expectations of meeting other singles serious about finding love. As with other paid dating services you can only communicate with members once you have paid for a subscription. It is free to create a profile and search, but that is about it. The advantages of communicating only with paid members are really important though. First, you know the other person is actively looking to date since they have money on the line, and second, since most subscriptions are paid by credit or debit card this means that their is much less chance of the person being some sort of scammer when compared to the free dating services.

Match Group announced its investment in and partnership with safety platform Noonlight to roll out a series of safety tools across its apps, including a “panic” button for emergencies.

According to Tech Crunch, the new feature will allow users to discreetly summon emergency services through the app if they are feeling uneasy or need assistance while on a date. The user can input information about their dates, including when and where they are going and with whom. They can then share their location so the app tracks them during the date, and hit a panic button if they feel unsafe. The panic button connects the user with Noonlight’s dispatchers, and if needed, Noonlight will alert emergency responders to their location. 

Recipient
Plenty of Fish

This years Editor's Top Pick - Free award recipient is once again Plenty of Fish (POF). This dating service continues to be one of the top destinations for singles looking to date. POF is most popular with single adults aged 30 and up, including Millennials, Gen-X, Boomers and seniors (over 4 million active users every day).

For a dating service to be considered for this award they must offer the features for free needed to successfully find and communicate with other members. A member has to be able to use the dating service at no cost and be able to successfully arrange dates. All of the popular free dating services offer a paid subscription option, what makes POF different is the amount of features they allow free members to use. When you compare this along with just how popular the service is, then you understand why they are the winner of this award.

Say Allo, a smart dating app that debuted in the United States in 2018, is making its way into the Canadian market. The “relationship discovery” platform harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and a continuous learning algorithm to help singles foster meaningful connections for long-term relationships. The app is now available in Montreal.

Say Allo relies on proprietary SmartSwipe™ technology. By combining AI and face-mapping technologies, SmartSwipe™ learns about your behaviors, interests, preferences. The more time you spend on the app, the more useful knowledge it gleans. SmartSwipe™ is so advanced it can even detect the facial features you prefer in a partner.

Recipient
Christian Dating For Free

The 2020 Top Pick - Christian Award recipient is Christian Dating For Free (CDFF). This dating service has been in business since 2007 and has become the largest dating service for Christians where it is free to view matches and communicate with other members all the time. This Christian dating service supports almost 30 different denominations and the member profiles include information about the members faith and how important their faith is to them. This information is also searchable allowing you to find the right match with very little trouble.

Popular dating apps including Tinder, OkCupid, Happn, and Grindr have come under fire from consumer rights groups and privacy coalitions for sharing personal data of their users with third parties, specifically advertisers.

A study was published this month from the Norwegian Consumer Council that showed 10 apps were collecting sensitive information including a user’s exact location from GPS tracking, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, drug use and other information and sharing it with at least 135 different third party companies, according to several reports. Some of those businesses included household names like Google and Facebook, but also lesser-known adtech companies such as OpenX, MoPub, and AppNexus. The study only looked at apps on Android phones, according to NPR.

This type of data collection and sharing violates the European Union’s rules to protect user data online under the General Data Protection Regulation.