Online Dating

Tinder changed the game when it popularized the swipe. Now the company is hoping a new movement-based feature will keep it on top of the mobile dating heap. Introducing Loops, two-second looping videos that promise to put more personality in profiles and “set your swipe game in motion.”

“Loops represents the next step in the evolution of our classic profile,” Brian Norgard, Chief Product Officer at Tinder, said in a statement. “With the addition of video, users have a new way to express themselves while also gaining key insights into the lives of potential matches. Whether it’s dancing at a concert, doing cartwheels on the beach, or clinking glasses with friends, Loops makes profiles come alive.”

Like Vine (RIP) and Boomerang before them, Loops allow users to upload videos from their phone and trim the footage within the app. The result is a short, repetitive clip that gives users another way of expressing their most dateable selves.

Tinder crashed for several hours on April 4^th after Facebook implemented new privacy and security restrictions, frustrating and confusing millions using the dating app.

Facebook has been facing increased scrutiny from the U.S. government after discovering major security breaches of its members’ personal information by third parties. Most recently, Facebook faced serious accusations after it was discovered that prominent research firm Cambridge Analytica stole Facebook user information from about 87 million users, including information about their political beliefs, without their knowledge or consent.

Facebook has since taken action to correct course, implementing more restrictions on its third party advertisers and partners to limit the amount of information they can access. Facebook previously allowed apps like Tinder to request user data automatically, but now that isn’t the case. Unfortunately for Tinder, this meant its users faced login errors and weren’t able to access the app at all.

Match Group which owns and operates Plenty of Fish dating service (also known as POF) announced on April 12^th, 2018 that Malgosia Green has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer. She starts her new job on April 23.

On her new position Malgosia Green stated "... I am very proud to be joining such an exceptional team and am excited to deliver new and innovative product experiences for our members."

Green brings a lot of previous tech experience to her new job. She has founded and run several education tech companies in Toronto including serving as the Chief Product Officer of Top Hat. Green has also been named one of the "20 Young women in Power" by Canadian Business Magazine and a Top Canadian Woman in Tech by Boardlist.

Huggle Marketing Team

Image: BusinessCloud

While Bumble battles Match Group over intellectual property, another women-led dating app is celebrating a more positive 2018. Huggle, a British friendship and dating service launched in 2016, and its all-female marketing team has been acquired by Badoo.

Huggle matches users based on the places they love to visit. Simply indicate what you’re looking for – a date or a friend – and your search preferences, including your ideal age range and how many places you must have in common. Huggle uses GPS to automatically check you into locations you visit and notifies you of profiles that share your interests.

Founders Stina Sanders and Valerie Stark believe this approach to dating offers a more effective way to assess compatibility.

The dating app world has once again been hit with a privacy scandal. DC-based developer Trevor Faden revealed a sweeping security flaw in Grindr’s code, a glitch he says has the potential to expose sensitive information of more than 3 million daily users.

According to Faden, Grindr attaches a list of restricted profiles to each user’s account to prevent the app from displaying a profile after the user has blocked them. The list would normally remain invisible, but a loophole makes it possible to retrieve the list from Grindr’s code, thereby granting someone access to the names of every account that has blocked them.

Faden launched a website tool called C*ckBlocked that allowed users to retrieve their blocked lists by entering their Grindr username and password. Nearly 50,000 signed up, and once they did so, Faden was able to gain access to a cache of other personal information that is not publicly available on Grindr profiles, including unread messages, email addresses, deleted photos, and location data -- even for users who opted out of making their location public.

Bumble has filed a $400 million lawsuit against Match Group, the parent company of popular dating apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, and Match. Bumble accused Match Group of interfering with its business operations, including stealing trade secrets and hurting the company’s chance to sell equity investments, according to reports from CNN Tech and Recode.

The Bumble lawsuit follows a previous lawsuit filed by Match Group against Bumble two weeks prior. Match Group accused the female-friendly dating app of patent infringement, specifically in regard to its swiping technology, stating that it is virtually identical to Tinder.

Bumble initially responded to the lawsuit with a post on its website, stating: “We swipe left on your attempted scare tactics, and on these endless games. We swipe left on your assumption that a baseless lawsuit would intimidate us. Given your enduring interest in our company, we expected you to know us a bit better by now.”