Match Group

Tinder has confirmed it is testing a new ultra-premium service priced at $500 per month, tentatively called Tinder Vault.

According to Fast Company who broke the story, Tinder Vault is offering different perks for the price point, including a 24/7 Concierge Service for those willing to pay. The details about the service are still vague, and the company said they might not offer it if there isn’t the demand, but that remains to be seen.

Tinder’s chief product officer Mark Van Ryswyk said in an interview with Fast Company that the feature is still “in its early days,” and that Tinder could even end up drastically cutting the price. There was no word on when the company plans to release the service more broadly.

Australia’s Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has ordered the country’s top ten dating app services to hand over information on sexual violence reports, including Tinder, Bumble and Grindr.

According to Australian Associated Press, the information will include reports on “the extent of harm being experienced by users” as well as the safety protocols of these apps. Rowland has also requested data on the number of reports the app companies have received in regard to sexual harassment and abuse among users on these platforms, including during a message exchange or after a date.

Each dating app company is also required to share its protocols for preventing banned users from returning to the app under a new name and account, as well as the actions it has taken in response to reports, including police referrals or other services provided to users, according to AAP.

Single men are increasingly turning to Open AI’s ChatGPT and other AI chat bots to write their dating profiles and send messages to matches on dating app Tinder.

According to Vice, Facebook’s leaked AI tool LLaMA was being tested by dating app users against the popular ChatGPT, both of which can be used to help craft profiles and message matches. And recently, Open AI released ChatGPT4, the newer and more comprehensive version of ChatGPT which took the world by storm.

So far, LLaMA has no guardrails in place so users can experiment as they see fit. ChatGPT 4 is already being used to create text for Tinder profiles and give tips to users for gaining more matches.

Facebook originally made the AI available to researchers and approved other parties, but the tool appeared in 4Chan after a user leaked it on the forum, according to Vice.

Tinder has announced two significant new features it is rolling out, including highlighting relationship types (including non-monogamy) and allowing members to display their pronouns on their profiles.

With the new update, Tinder users will be able to choose from a variety of terms to describe their relationship type, and it will display prominently on their profile just under their name and age. They can choose from descriptions like “monogamy,” “ethical non-monogamy,” “open relationship” or “open to exploring,” for example.

According to the press release, Tinder is making this shift to put relationship types more front and center, since it found that 41 percent of Gen Z users are open to non-traditional and non-monogamous relationships. This feature complements the Relationship Goals feature the company rolled out last year, which gave users the ability to specify if they are searching for “Long-term,” “short term” or long-term, open to short-term” among other types, like “just figuring out my dating goals.”

India is now among the fastest-growing dating app markets worldwide, thanks to a growing young population of singles and their changing attitudes towards dating.

In terms of year-over-year growth, India emerged as the fifth largest market in dating app spending in 2022, according to a new study by data.ai Intelligence. Researchers found that Indian users spent $31 million more in 2022 than they did in 2021 despite economic factors like inflation that affect consumer spending.

Match Group, Bumble, and other major dating app companies have made a big investment in India, hoping to capitalize on this attractive market which now brings in millions of dollars in revenue each year to dating app companies.

A group of conservative Catholics based in Colorado spent millions to buy tracking data from dating apps to identify gay priests, and then shared the information with regional Bishops.

The Washington Post, which broke the story, noted that the purchasing and use of the data is legal, and is “emblematic of a new surveillance frontier in which private individuals can potentially track other Americans’ locations and activities using commercially available information.”

The Post heard audio recordings of executive members discussing the organization’s mission and this particular project. Jayd Henricks, the group’s president, did not respond to questions from the Post, but instead posted an article on the website First Things saying he was proud to be part of the group, and that the purpose was to “help the Church be holy…” He also wrote that the group has conducted other research, but did not provide details.