General News

Hornet Profile Verification Badge

Image: Hornet

If you’ve ever spoken to someone on a dating app and thought, “This person is too good to be real,” you are not alone... and you might be right. The virtual world is full of scammers and other shady characters, including the notorious “catfish” — a person who creates a fictitious online identity to lure unsuspecting mates on dating services. The ever-increasing popularity of online dating means that catfishing, too, is increasing at an alarming rate, and more and more singles are falling victim to the cons.

Hornet has a solution. In a bid to stop would-be fraudsters in their tracks, the popular gay dating app has announced that will let users earn a badge of authenticity, akin to the blue checkmarks of verified profiles on Instagram and Twitter. Hornet is the first major gay dating app to intoduce a veification symbol to identify genuine users.

Shares of Match Group fell 15 percent after the company announced it will miss revenue goals for the fourth quarter. Shares of IAC also fell by 11 percent, according to Reuters.

The company expects fourth quarter revenue to be between $545 and $555 million, short of the $559.3 million goal according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

This news comes on the heels of a complaint filed by the U.S. Federal Trading Commission that Match Group offered fake profiles to entice customers to purchase paid subscriptions to its services, among other “deceptive and unfair practices,” as said in the lawsuit. Match Group is also facing legal entanglements with former Tinder employees, including founder Sean Rad, who said the company cheated him out of rightful payment after undervaluing his stock options.

Host of Ghost Stories: Sydnee Washington

Image: Hinge

Dating app Hinge launched a new podcast in time for Halloween - appropriately called “Ghost Stories.” The podcast aims to try to get to the bottom of why people ghost, featuring real-life participants.

Ghosting happens when the person you’ve been messaging or dating suddenly disappears, not responding to texts or calls, and leaves you wondering what happened. For daters, this is a frustrating experience that begs the question: “did I do something wrong?”

The podcast aims to get to the bottom of why people ghost and offer ways to avoid the experience. Each episode also features a “ghostee” who will be able to confront the person who ghosted them, and therefore get an opportunity for answers.

Late in 2018 eHarmony was acquired by the German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 (Parship Elite Group). Since then they have been busy working on a large update to eHarmony which went live on November 4^th, 2019. With this update came the closure of Compatible Partners which now redirects to eHarmony with the following message:

A fresh experience is waiting for you. Log in with your existing credentials or register now to discover what‘s new.

So, it looks like current members have nothing to worry about as all active member accounts have been moved over to eHarmony so all you need to do is log in with your existing information.

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.

A New York state appeals court unanimously rejected IAC/InterActiveCorp’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Tinder founders and early employees who say IAC undervalued Tinder to avoid paying them billions of dollars. This decision affirms a June 13 ruling in which New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla also rejected a motion to dismiss the litigation.

The lawsuit alleges that IAC and Match Group cheated the plaintiffs out of money they were owed by improperly undervaluing Tinder, which today is worth more than $20 billion, and converting their company stock options. The appeals court denied IAC’s motion to dismiss on statute-of-limitations and other grounds, and said that the plaintiffs “were not bound under their stock options agreements to what they considered artificially low valuations of their stakes.”