Online Dating

The hack isn't the only bad press plaguing the Ashley Madison camp. Following the security breach, the leak of sensitive customer info, and a class action lawsuit, a former employee is now back in the news for claiming she was told to create hundreds of fake profiles for non-existent female “members.”

Doriana Silva, who worked at the company’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, tried to sue the firm after claiming she suffered a repetitive strain injury after being told to input 1,000 counterfeit memberships in a short period of time.

According to court documents, Silva alleges that her job “entailed concocting phony profiles of alluring females and inputting these profiles into the appellants' online dating service in order to attract male subscribers.” She claims she was given only three weeks to create 1,000 fake profiles on Ashley Madison.

Her claim states that the purpose of the profiles is to “entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website. They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison — or any real human beings at all." She also claims she was led to believe that the creation of fake profiles was considered a normal business practice in the industry.

Silva claimed £10 million in damages when she launched her case in 2012. Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, counter-sued. The two sides agreed to drop their cases earlier this year, but the suit is back in the news following the big hack.

Online security experts have suggested Ashley Madison is perhaps guilty of further fraud. Some believe the company may have purchased bulk email addresses from marketing companies in order to create the impression that their user base is significantly larger than it really is.

A source involved in the FBI's investigation into the leak told The Daily Telegraph that inspections of the database suggest that a large number of the female profiles on Ashley Madison were in fact created by a relatively small number of individuals.

Ashley Madison says on its website that it cannot “guarantee the authenticity of any profile,” but it's hardly an uncommon phenomenon for an online dating site to artificially inflate its number of profiles to appear more attractive to new users. Ashley Madison may have taken publically available information from other databases to use on its site.

Alternatively, actual users may have stolen other people's email addresses to avoid giving their real name and contact info.

Either way, the news is ensuring Ashley Madison is hit even harder. Avid Life Media has scrapped plans to float on the London Stock Exchange and now faces serious legal action from those affected by the hack.

August 2015 hasn't been kind to Tinder.

Vanity Fair journalist Nancy Jo Sales wrote a feature called “Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse”, in which she blames the app (and online dating in general) for swiping romance off the screen and disrupting the dating lives of modern twentysomethings.

Rather than quietly moving on, Tinder took a stand. Or, to put it more accurately, Tinder decided to go on an epic Twitter rant against Nancy Jo Sales. The Twitter tear ended up in everybody's headlines, putting the app under even greater scrutiny than the original article.

In the wake of the messy meltdown, many seem to be rethinking their approach to online dating. And interestingly, a Tinder co-founder may be behind one of the best alternatives.

Last year, Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe sued the company for sexual harassment and was pushed out of the business. Following the kerfuffle, Wolfe founded Bumble – a free, feminist dating app where women call the shots.

The familiar swipe feature is still in play, and both users receive a notification if a match is made, but only women are allowed to make the first move. So far, the app has been successful. The male-female ratio is about 50-50 and more than 500,000 users have joined. The average user spends more than an hour on Bumble per day.

This month, Bumble plans to launch a new feature to help users separate the frogs from the princes. Changes to the algorithm will measure how users behave on the app. Those with “good” behavior will be rewarded with a verified status dubbed “VIBee.” The hope is that VIBee status will act as a filter, much the way age might, helping users to weed out flakes, trolls, and anyone else with generally jerky tendencies.

Unlike some apps that screen for external markers of social status, like graduating from an Ivy League university, VIBee status is about how users conduct themselves. “Our pre-vetting is about how you behave in the app,” Wolfe told TIME. “If you didn’t graduate from Harvard you can still earn your way in.”

“We want to reward those users who have been good members of the community,” she continued. “It’s about rewarding, not excluding.”

Users who respond to messages and swipe judiciously are eligible to earn VIBee status. Those who always swipe right or never swipe right at all will be screened out, as well as anyone who has been reported for harassment. Users with VIBee status will be able to search only for other VIBee-status users.

Tinder is unlikely to disappear from the scene any time soon, but for those who are questioning the world it creates, Bumble could offer a brighter future. For more on the Tinder dating app, please read our review.

Thanks to Labor Day here in the United States and Canada, eHarmony is having a free trial weekend. It starts this Thursday morning September 3rd and runs until midnight (PST) on Monday September 7th.

This free trial weekend (or what use to be called free communication weekends) runs for 5 straight days and it allows all members of eHarmony to communicate for free. When communicating you must complete the guided communication steps first. These are a couple of questions that each member answers which are designed to allow you to learn more about the person and to give you some topics for further conversation. After these steps you can go straight to emailing each other.

The sooner you register, the longer you have to communicate with other members. Registering as a member on eHarmony has always been free with no credit card required. eHarmony has a number of ways to access their service. This includes via the dating app either through your tablet or phone (found on iTunes and Google Play), or via the website through your laptop and mobile devices. Free trials do not include the viewing of profile photos, secure call (phone service), or skipping the guided communication process and going straight to email.

To find out more, our detailed eHarmony review contains further information about this dating service.

Dating can be difficult, there’s no doubt about it. One of the most difficult things about online dating is the mental game many of us play. Instead of looking and considering each potential match on its own, we compare and contrast our matches, swiping left and right based on a couple of photos or an Instagram feed. The faster we swipe to reject (or even accept), the faster we can meet someone with whom we have a connection. Someone “better” than the last match.

When we are judging others so swiftly and definitively, it’s hard not to do the same thing to ourselves. Do you wonder what others think of you – why they might be swiping left instead of right? Why another match might be “better” than you? Do you think that peoples’ reactions might change if you were just a little prettier, or more athletic, or taller? (Especially if you reject matches based on these same criteria?) This can ruin your confidence as well as your online dating experience. Sometimes, it’s better to take a step back and gain some much-needed perspective.

Online dating creates the illusion that we are not only sizing each other up, but competing with one another. Let’s take social media as an example – something that most of us check regularly. We are constantly looking at what other people are doing, and how our lives compare.

Have you ever come across the Facebook or Instagram feed of a friend who is always posting vacation photos from exotic locales, or your friend who is part of a happy couple who can’t stop sharing how much they adore each other or their new baby? Maybe you see your friends’ new promotions, new houses, and exciting moments and think your life falls short.

Social media can give us skewed perspectives, and so can endlessly swiping on dating apps. While we might think that other people have an easier time with online dating, or they are getting more dates, or are somehow meeting “better” people online, rest assured – all of us have the same insecurities and challenges.

Instead of looking at online dating as a competition or a numbers game, it’s time to approach it differently. Instead of mindlessly swiping and judging, try taking things slowly. (I know, it’s against the dating app mindset, but it’s necessary.) Try reading what each person says in his/her profile. Spend one minute looking at a profile before moving on to the next. Try looking through an Instagram feed and not judging or comparing your lives, just observing. Try saying yes to a match who doesn’t seem like your type, just to see what the date might be like.

The more you can distance yourself from the cycle of comparing yourself to others, judging others, and hating online dating as a result, the better. Instead, have a more curious approach. Try to get to know someone rather than making a judgment. Seek connection, not perfection.

You can kiss SexyGirl88 goodbye. Usernames will no longer be part of the dating profile, at least on Match.com. The dating website giant has announced that it will no longer require its members to sign up with usernames, which have long been the cornerstone of the dating profile.

Since Match was created 20 years ago people have used catchy, cute, and frankly sometimes crazy usernames as a way to express themselves. But given the ubiquity of online dating coupled with the popularity of social media, the stigma of “being seen” online no longer exists. Despite the creativity usernames require and how they have playfully enhanced profiles seen by potential matches, Match feels there’s no longer a need for people to hide behind an alias.

Match decided to pay homage to the art of the username by providing some final statistics about them, gathered from its own user database. They created a list of the top 10 “most memorable” user names (making it understandable why many people won’t be sad to see them go):

• TwisDemNipples
• Hardworkingmilf
• IWantAllDaSecks
• DilettosJunkie
• SkittleFartz
• TonyPonyNY
• GlitterIsAColor21
• SPF70Always
• BigGulps32oz
• Assless_Chaps

Match also conducted a survey of its members on some of the best and worst usernames employed over the years. (Although we should note that daters could have used this kind of information when usernames were still a part of the equation.) Perhaps this information can help you with your profiles on other dating sites.

Match discovered that your given name matters. Guys named Mike (61%), Dave (60%) and Steve (59%) are the most likely to get messaged by a woman on Match, while men are more likely to contact Sarah (62%), Michelle (60%), and Lisa (59%).

Country music has always been a money-making business, and it seems that daters on Match likewise preferred to emphasize their own country roots. “Countryboy” and “Countrygirl” have been two of the most popularly utilized names on the site, but 78% of women and 36% of men would NOT reach out to someone with that moniker. The least popular usernames - “Babygirl” ( 14%) “Angel” ( 29%) and “Cowboy” (16% ) did not fare too well, either.

Match also found that men and women differed on what they felt made usernames “bad.” According to the survey, 62% of men felt that immature names were a turn-off, while 81% of women felt offensive names were a turn off.

Now that Match no longer requires usernames, perhaps other dating sites will follow suit. Thanks to dating apps, profiles are being streamlined down to their basic elements: photos and a few tags. It makes sense that usernames would become sidelined, too.

For ore on this dating service you can read our review of Match.

The bad news just keeps coming for Ashley Madison.

The adultery dating site was hacked last month by a group calling itself The Impact Team. At the time of the security breach, The Impact Team threatened to release customer records online if Ashley Madison was not shut down.

Avid Life Media (ALM), which runs Ashley Madison and other dating sites, did not back down and the hackers made good on their threat. More than 30 million email addresses and credit card numbers have been exposed, including those of notable figures in entertainment and politics.

In the wake of the leak, things have only gotten worse for Ashley Madison. There are reports of suicides that may be tied to the hacking scandal. Avid Life Media is offering a $500,000 reward to anyone with info that leads to the arrest of the hackers. The company is also facing a $760 million class action lawsuit over the data hack.

Eliot Shore, a widower from Ottawa, is the plaintiff in the suit filed this week in Ontario against Avid Life Media and Avid Life Dating, a subsidiary that runs Ashley Madison. The legal action alleges that the privacy of thousands of Canadians was breached when the hackers infiltrated Ashley Madison.

"Numerous former users of AshleyMadison.com have approached the law firms to inquire about their privacy rights under Canadian law," the law firms Charney Lawyers and Sutts, Strosberg LLP said in a statement. "They are outraged that AshleyMadison.com failed to protect its users' information. In many cases, the users paid an additional fee for the website to remove all of their user data, only to discover that the information was left intact and exposed."

Lawyer Ted Charney told VICE News that around 100 people have expressed interest in joining the class action so far, noting that anyone who registers will remain anonymous.

It will be up to a court to decide whether Ashley Madison did enough to protect its customers. David Fraser, a Halifax-based internet, technology, and privacy lawyer, thinks the class action faces “a bit of a challenge.” He says the Ashley Madison terms of service are "decidedly consumer unfriendly" and "completely covered their butt."

There may even be a question over whether this can be a class action at all. Ashley Madison's terms preclude customers from filing such suits, but consumer protection legislation in Ontario protects the right to do so.

Either way, it won't be the end of the issue for Ashley Madison. The Associated Press reported that another lawsuit seeking class action status was filed in the US days after the hack became public.