Legal

Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge and other popular dating apps, has brought a lawsuit against Apple in India, accusing the tech giant of “monopolistic conduct.”

According to an exclusive report from Reuters, the lawsuit follows other filings the company has made against Apple’s App Store practices, since the company takes commission on every in-app sale and doesn’t allow third party payment systems. Match Group filed a complaint in the Netherlands with the country’s regulatory agency which fined Apple almost 50 million euro, until they came to an agreement to revise App Store practices.

Another lawsuit was filed against Apple in India for its App Store practices, arguing that the company “restricts innovation and development” by “enforcing the use of its proprietary in-app purchase system and ‘excessive’ 30 percent commission,” according to Reuter’s review of the filing. That prompted an investigation from the CCI (Competition Commission of India) back in December of 2021.

Founder of Blued - Baoli Ma

Baoli Ma, the founder of BlueCity Holdings which operates Blued, China’s most popular gay dating app, has stepped down from his position as chairman and CEO after the company was privatized and delisted from NASDAQ. The company has not yet named a successor.

According to the South China Morning Post, Ma hinted that it was difficult to run a gay dating platform in the country’s current environment, where the government is cracking down on LGBTQ content online and removing gay dating apps including Grindr from its app stores. Last year, Chinese conglomerate Tencent erased over a dozen LGBTQ university groups from WeChat. Same-sex marriage is currently illegal in China as well.

The country has enforced new rules regarding privacy, data management and algorithmic recommendations for the past few years, which have especially affected gay dating platforms like Blued. But the app has run into controversies on its own, too. In 2019, Blued suspended new user registrations for one week after a report came out that some underage users contracted HIV on dates set up via the app.

A Russian court recently fined Match Group 2 million roubles ($33,280 USD) for its failure to store user data in Russian territory. Match Group owns the popular dating app Tinder, among others.

According to Reuters, Russia is taking action against American companies for refusing to store user data within the country, including against Meta’s WhatsApp, Expedia Group, and Snap Inc. Last month, the court fined Google’s parent company Alphabet for 15 million roubles because it was storing user information outside of Russia.

The move seems to be part of a larger strategy to penalize U.S. tech companies for controlling the data of its citizens in the wake of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Executives at Baihe Jiayuan Network Group, an online dating subsidiary of conglomerate Fosun International, a pharmaceutical giant in China, were arrested on charges of embezzlement.

According to the South China Morning Post, the executives were found missing which led to reports of their “disappearance,” sparking rumors across social media platforms. Fosun’s anti-graft department had discovered evidence during routine online checks of the company that the executives had abused their positions to commit the crime. The department alerted Fosun which reported the executives to Chinese authorities.

The report of the missing executives initially surfaced on Weibo, with a post sharing that the company’s top executives, including its CEO, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer, along with a number of vice presidents, had disappeared according to South China Morning Post. Local news picked up the story, so Baihe Jiayuan released a statement saying the executives were in custody and cooperating with authorities.

Google has brought a lawsuit against Match Group, announcing its intention to remove dating apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge from its Play Store.

The move is part of a countersuit, according to Bloomberg. The dating app conglomerate joined other app developers in bringing a lawsuit against Google’s parent company Alphabet, citing unfair practices in Google’s Play Store, specifically the requirement that developers pay commission for every in-app purchase made by its users. Google settled with the developers to pay them $90 million to compensate for lost revenue over the years.

Match Group has filed lawsuits and complaints against Apple for similar reasons.

Metaverse dating apps have become popular among singles in China, and now one of the most popular - Soul - intends to go public in the Hong Kong market. It is backed by tech giant Tencent, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and CICC serving as co-sponsors.

Soul lets users create and use avatars (often resembling Japanese anime) to interact over the app, and rivals TikTok for time spent engaging on the app – an average of about 40 minutes per user, according to South China Morning Post. It currently has over 32 million users.

Downloads and engagement have grown in part due to recurring lockdowns across the country from Covid-19 outbreaks. Between 2019 and 2021, Soul’s monthly active users went from 11.5 million to 31.6 million, according to parent company Soulgate.