General News

Dating app Grindr has been sued in the U.K. for allegedly selling the HIV status of its users to third parties.

According to the BBC, the claim was filed in London’s High Court, and alleges that “covert tracking technology” was used to track and illegally share the personal health status of users with advertisers. More than 650 claimants were affected along with reportedly thousands of other U.K. users.

Sharing personal and sensitive data of users with third parties without their consent is illegal in the U.K.

The lawsuit says the information shared with third parties includes the ethnicities and sexual orientations of users. It also says the sharing of such information took place primarily before April 2018, though some data was shared as recently as April 2020. The lawsuit specifically names two companies which help app developers analyze user engagement, Apptimize and Localytics, as involved third parties with access to the data. The lawsuit also claims that these outside firms might have retained some of the sensitive data for their own purposes.

A new study from the research team at Mozilla has found that dating apps are collecting and selling more information than its users might be aware of.

According to The Washington Post, Mozilla found that 80 percent of the dating apps they reviewed – which include popular apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge among others – may share the personal data of users with their advertisers. In fact, the privacy policies that users must agree with to use these platforms make it clear that their personal information could be sold. But how many are reading the fine print?

Spark Networks’ privacy policy was particularly specific and alarming for its apps JDate, Christian Mingle and Elite Singles. It stated that the apps might collect “sensitive information” including political affiliation, union memberships, and your “sexual preferences and experiences,” according to the Post.

Grindr says it will be offering the biggest change to its platform in the app’s history, describing the app’s new purpose to be a “gayborhood in your pocket.”

According to Axios, the gay dating app was under pressure from both users and investors to give a facelift to the app, which has remained essentially the same for the past few years. Arison has been teasing these changes lately, including the new feature Roam which will allow users to set a location on the app to where they are traveling, so they can match and message with people before arriving.

The new features are currently being tested and Arison plans to launch them later this year.

AI and chatbots are changing how we date, as well as how we use dating apps.

According to a new report in Times of India, as well as a report from Business Insider, singles are gravitating more to AI features, including using them to craft messages and profiles, analyze relationships, and even finding virtual girlfriends and boyfriends via realistic chatbots. (In some cases, dating apps that are AI-based can send chatbots in the likeness of the user out on dates with chatbots of other users and report back how the date went – in other words, the chatbots do the heavy lifting.)

The Business Insider report conducted an experiment where its reporter set up her chatbot and it went on a date. The conversation with her date’s chatbot was sent to her via the app so she could read the exchange. She noted that her chatbot got some of the answers she would have said right, and others wrong. (For example, the chatbot said she loved pineapple on pizza. In fact, she’d never tried it).

A new report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has found that people are using apps like Facebook, TikTok and dating app Tinder to traffic guns.

The report released in early April found that between 2017 and 2021, a larger percentage of guns were trafficked over online platforms like these than were sold at gun shows, according to The Washington Times.

The ATF investigation found a number of illegal ways people could obtain firearms, including 3.6 percent of illicit sales from online marketplaces like eBay, Craigslist, and OfferUp, 2.7 percent via social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and 1 percent through social apps like WhatsApp, TikTok and Tinder.

Bumble is giving 50 couples who met on its app a free wedding in Las Vegas.

According to People Magazine, the company announced its plan to celebrate couples who met via its platform with a free wedding, travel included. For one weekend, Bumble has rented out the famous Little White Chapel in Las Vegas and is turning it into a branded wedding venue for 50 lucky couples.

The chapel itself will be decorated in Bumble yellow, which the company is calling Little Yellow Chapel for the wedding weekend. The famous venue has hosted many celebrity weddings, including Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in 2022, as well as Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner in 2019, according to People.