Legal

IAC has announced its plan to spin off its most profitable company, Match Group, to create “two independent public companies,” according to a company statement.

Match Group is a publicly traded company and owns a suite of star dating apps like Tinder, PlentyofFish, Hinge and OkCupid among others, but IAC is still Match Group’s majority owner (with 80 percent of Match Group’s holdings). According to Tech Crunch, when the spin-off occurs, IAC says it would distribute its Match Group shares to IAC stockholders, which means IAC shareholders would have shares in both companies.

The move would allow Match Group to become a fully separate, independent company.

Greg Blatt

Former CEO of Tinder and Match Group Greg Blatt filed a defamation lawsuit this month against Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and former VP of Marketing and Communications Rosette Pambakian.

According to a report by CNN, Blatt claimed in the lawsuit that Rad offered to pay Pambakian “millions of dollars” to make “false allegations of sexual harassment against Blatt…in a brazen attempt to gain publicity.” He was referring to an earlier sexual harassment lawsuit Pambakian had filed against him, which she alleged took place at a company holiday party.

Match.com released an official statement regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s allegations that the dating service exposed consumers to the risk of fraud and engaged in other deceptive and unfair business practices.

In a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Texas, the FTC alleges that Match used fake notifications to trick users into upgrading to premium subscriptions and that the company deceived consumers by failing to provide clear disclosures and cancellation practices. Match has denied the allegations, claiming that the issues pointed out by the FTC have “either been taken grossly out of context or permanently eliminated by Match.”

Facebook Dating just launched, but privacy advocates are warning despite all the opt-in features, Facebook could be collecting more data than you realize.

Facebook Dating is reassuring potential customers by allowing them to make decisions about how visible they want to be on the app – including providing features to block certain users from appearing in your matches (like an ex) and hiding your dating profile from friends and work colleagues. Even some of the more questionable features – like “secret crush” – where you can identify someone you secretly like over the app, and if they do the same you two are matched, are only activated when users choose them.

Near the end of September, Tinder had a litigious week. News of two legal matters - one new, one ongoing - that involve the dating platform and its parent company recently came to light.

Tinder has issued two complaints alleging trademark infringement to the startup dating app Wild. The complaints concern Wild’s original logo, which featured a mirror image of Tinder’s flame design in place of the dot over the ‘i’. Match Group, owner of the Tinder brand, sent an email to Wild demanding that the logo be changed:

"Your application uses, without authorization, the 'Flame Outline' design/logo, a trademark owned and controlled by Tinder, Inc… As we seek an amicable and swift resolution to this matter, we ask that your app immediately cease using any Tinder trademarks of any other name or mark which is likely to lead consumers to mistakenly believe its products or services are associated with Tinder or authorized by Tinder. If satisfactory modification is not made to address these violations, we ask that your application be removed from the platform."

The Federal Trade Commission announced it is suing Match Group for using fake notifications to trick users into paying for subscriptions to Match.com. The FTC also alleges that Match Group unfairly exposed consumers to the risk of fraud and engaged in other allegedly deceptive and unfair practices to induce users to subscribe and keep them subscribed to the dating service.

Match.com allows users to create a profile and use some of the platform’s features for free. However, users are prohibited from responding to messages from admirers unless they upgrade to a higher membership tier with a subscription fee. According to the FTC’s complaint, Match sent misleading advertisements to users with free accounts stating that someone had expressed interest in them and encouraging them to subscribe to the service to view the message and the identity of its sender. Many users purchased subscriptions as a result of these deceptive ads, believing they were going to communicate with a real user who could be “the one.”