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In March, Chicago Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart sued Craigslist for allowing pimps and prostitutes to use their classifieds service (see Story). Since then Craigslist has faced mounting bad press about their Erotic Services category and the famous "Craigslist Killers" which used their site to stalk their victims. With the mounting legal troubles Craigslist has changed the requirements to post an ad in their Erotic Services category. Users must now pay a fee with a credit card and provide a working phone number.

Last week Craigslist caught a break, U.S. District Judge John F. Grady dismissed Tom Dart's request to force the web site to eliminate its erotic services category. The federal judge stated that Sheriff Dart cannot sue Craigslist for the conduct of its users.

For more on the story, read NBC Chicago and to find out more about this classifieds website, read our review of Craigslist.

The American Association of Retired Persons or AARP, is the largest organization for people 50 years and older in the United States. AARP recently announced that they have a new love and relationships expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, who is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington and has more than 35 years of experience in researching love and relationships. Dr Schwartz is also Perfectmatch.com's relationship expert and helped oversee the design of their automated matching system.

As part of her new duties at AARP, Dr. Schwartz will be writing a weekly online column called "The Naked Truth" at the AARP website which will cover a number of topics related to relationships, love and sexuality. She will also contribute to other online resources with videos, online chatting and blogs. This content will be both for educational and instructional purposes.

To find out about the dating site Dr. Pepper Schwartz is associated with, read our review of Perfectmatch.com.

People Media, a provider of online dating communities like BlackPeopleMeet.com and SeniorPeopleMeet.com was ranked on Technology Fast 500, Deloitte LLP`s ranking of 500 of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in the US and Canada. People Media came in at number 359. Ranking is determined by the percentage of fiscal year revenue growth during a five year period. People Media grew 342 percent during 2004 to 2008.

To check out some of People Media dating sites, read our review of BlackPeopleMeet.com and our review of SeniorPeopleMeet.com.

Mate1.com’s CEO Liz Wasserman was on the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show in August. From listening to the show, we learned several new things. First of all, Mate1.com is a family business launched in 2003. Mate1 is a privately held company and they currently have had over 25 million members registered since launch. About 1 to 2 million members are active at any one time on the dating site. Currently Mate1 is available only in English but there are plans on translating Mate1 into other languages next year sometime.

At the moment Mate1.com offers a 3 Day trial for under $2 and then a monthly subscription for $49.99 USD. They plan to add a 3 months, 6 months and 12 months membership subscription plans soon. Mate1.com has always been free for women to reply and contact any paid member, but this will change soon.

The big news is Mate1.com plans to switch to the freemium business model . This means all the basic services are free on the dating site like creating a profile, searching, replying to any mail message and contacting paid members. The only real thing you will not be allowed to do as far as we know is initiate contact with other free members. You will have to purchase a membership for this (at this point we are unsure if chatting will be available to free members). This freemium model is virtually identical to what Mate1.com was offering women on their dating site except now it is for men and women.

Wasserman did say on the show that in about a week, the new membership model will go into effect. The radio show was posted on August 29th, 2009, just over 5 weeks ago. When I logged into Mate1.com today, I was still presented with the old membership upgrade page and no way to access my mail messages. Obviously things have been delayed, I wonder why?

We did also learn that Mate1 does block certain ranges of IP addresses from different countries that a lot of spam and scammers come from. They also use technology from Iovation to fight fraud. Iovation technology works by taking a digital finger print of a computer. If this computer has been flagged as a potential scammer then the computer is blocked from the dating website.

Mate1.com is also planning to integrate social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter into their dating site. First up is a new Facebook application called "Connect More" which allows you to see which of your friends, friends are members of Mate1 and if they are actively looking for a partner.

For more information, listen to Cyber-Dating Expert Radio and to find out more about this dating site, read our review of Mate1.com.

Thomas Wong originally filed his petition against True.com for their auto billing and renewal practices of membership subscriptions on June 12, 2007. In March of 2009 a class action lawsuit was filed (see Story). As of September 22, 2009, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas approved the settlement. TrueBeginnings LLC has agreed to pay $1.5 million into a settlement fund over a period of a year in which former True.com subscribers are eligible to make a claim. True.com denies any allegations and wanted the case settled so they can move on and distance themselves from further bad press.

Members of the settlement class have until October 21, 2009, to submit claims forms to participate in the settlement. For more information on this, visit WONG V TRUEBEGINNINGS, LLC.

Touch and date - that's the way with the iPhone! Online dating has made the process of getting out and meeting new people easier than ever before. But dare we say the iPhone has made dating even easier? There are enough iPhone dating apps to fill a bucket and have it runneth over, but to help you save time, we've gone through the best of the best and made this short list for you to review. Some of the apps are free, some are affiliated with major online dating sites. Whatever your preference, use the following list to your advantage. Spend less time searching and more time meeting!

Match.com iPhone App
Designed to work hand-in-hand with your Match.com online dating account, this app is not only FREE, but it's very intuitive to use. While you cannot view all of the information you would generally view if you logged in on your computer, you can see pictures, read profiles, wink, save favorites and send messages. The interface is well-designed and they've recently added a new feature where you can search for other members of Match.com who are nearby and send them a message! Other cool features are the ability to take photos with your iPhone and instantly upload them to your Match.com profile and edit your profile information on the fly.