Legal

In what is becoming an all-too-familiar headline, a security researcher has discovered an online database containing sensitive personal information belonging to hundreds of millions of Facebook users. Names, phone numbers and unique users IDs were exposed in the breach.

Bob Diachenko first came across the data on December 14, ten days after it was created, and reported the leak on Comparitech. The trove was available for anyone to access without a password or any other form of authentication. Based on evidence he discovered, Diachenko believes the stolen data is most likely the result of an illegal scraping operation or Facebook API abuse by criminals based in Vietnam. The information contained in the database puts users at risk of multiple digital hazards, including SMS spam and phishing campaigns.

California state senator Ling Ling Chang

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, is on a mission to make the internet a cleaner, more clothed place. California state senator Ling Ling Chang recently announced that she has partnered with Wolfe Herd on a proposed law that would make it illegal to send unsolicited explicit photos online or via text. This comes nearly eight months after Wolfe Herd backed a similar bill in Texas.

For Chang, the cause hits close to home. She was the recipient of unwanted nude pictures in 2018, when she publicly shared her phone number in an effort to get feedback from her constituents in Diamond Bar, California. Chang claims that 95% of women she has spoken to about the issue have been sent lewd photos they did not ask for.

A revealing report published by ProPublica found that Match Group did not conduct background checks on users of their popular free platforms, including Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid, leaving their members vulnerable to sexual assault.

Columbia Journalism Investigations analyzed more than 150 incidents of sexual assault among people who met through dating apps over the last decade, ProPublica reported. Most met their matches through Match Group apps. The researchers discovered that registered sex offenders were using Match Group apps like Tinder and went on dates with women who had no idea, because while Match Group conducts background checks for paid apps like Match, they don’t for their free apps.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Tinder co-founder Sean Rad “irrelevant” back in 2014, but still gave him special access to user data, according to leaked emails reported by Forbes.

Zuckerberg had considered entering the online dating industry as far back as 2014, but ultimately put the decision on hold and granted the founder of Tinder, now one of the most popular dating apps in the world, special access to user data. Facebook colleagues suggested he meet with Rad, but Zuckerberg rejected the suggestion, saying in the emails, “I don’t think he’s that relevant. He probably just wants to make sure we won’t turn off their API.”

Shares of Match Group fell 15 percent after the company announced it will miss revenue goals for the fourth quarter. Shares of IAC also fell by 11 percent, according to Reuters.

The company expects fourth quarter revenue to be between $545 and $555 million, short of the $559.3 million goal according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

This news comes on the heels of a complaint filed by the U.S. Federal Trading Commission that Match Group offered fake profiles to entice customers to purchase paid subscriptions to its services, among other “deceptive and unfair practices,” as said in the lawsuit. Match Group is also facing legal entanglements with former Tinder employees, including founder Sean Rad, who said the company cheated him out of rightful payment after undervaluing his stock options.

A New York state appeals court unanimously rejected IAC/InterActiveCorp’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Tinder founders and early employees who say IAC undervalued Tinder to avoid paying them billions of dollars. This decision affirms a June 13 ruling in which New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla also rejected a motion to dismiss the litigation.

The lawsuit alleges that IAC and Match Group cheated the plaintiffs out of money they were owed by improperly undervaluing Tinder, which today is worth more than $20 billion, and converting their company stock options. The appeals court denied IAC’s motion to dismiss on statute-of-limitations and other grounds, and said that the plaintiffs “were not bound under their stock options agreements to what they considered artificially low valuations of their stakes.”