Industry

Since Tinder was banned in Pakistan, young singles are flocking to private Facebook groups to meet others to date, even though Facebook Dating is not available in the country.

One of the most popular Facebook groups is Two Rings, a volunteer-run matchmaking group that does not charge its users any fees. It currently has about 228,000 members, and at least 335 couples have found spouses through the group, according to news source Rest of World.

"Instead of waiting on their parents or family to find somebody, they are actually now doing it all on their own," a cofounder of a Facebook dating group for graduates of some of Pakistan’s premier business schools told Business Insider.

Google has reached an agreement with app developers who sued over unfair Play Store practices, including charging a 30 percent commission on all in-app purchases. Part of the settlement requires Google to pay developers $90 million in lost revenue over the years, including Match Group.

According to Tech Crunch, in addition to the $90 million payout, Google will be revising its Developer Distribution Agreement to allow developers to contact users outside of the app, and to be more transparent with annual reports detailing app removals and account terminations, for example. In addition, Google will add a new “Indie Apps Corner” to its Play Store to highlight apps made by smaller startups and independent developers, who often get overlooked for the big players.

The settlement doesn’t resolve a larger problem of allowing developers to use third party payment systems and cutting Google Play and Apple Stores out of these commissions, which currently is not allowed in either store. Match Group and others have sued both Apple and Google for the right to have their own in-app payment system without forcing users to go through the stores, and for having to pay a percentage of every purchase to the tech giants.

Apple has come to an agreement with Dutch regulators over an ongoing dispute over dating apps being able to use third party payment systems.

After weeks of being fined for non-compliance, the tech giant has finally reached an accord with the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). According to Tech Crunch, the details are still vague, but the agreement basically follows the original proposal Apple submitted with a few significant changes, such as not requiring dating apps to create a separate binary app for third party payment systems.

Apple confirmed that they might do one of the following as it pertains to the agreement, which doesn’t make clear what developers can expect going forward. The tech giant said that dating apps might: continue to use Apple’s in-app purchase system; use a third-party payment system in the app that people can choose; include an in-app link directing users to the developer’s website to complete a purchase; or lastly, use a third-party payment system within the app and include a link directing people to the developer’s website to complete a purchase, according to Tech Crunch.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is suing Match Group for hindering its investigation into OkCupid. The dating app, owned by Match, shared a user’s photo with facial recognition company Clarifai.

According to Bloomberg and BiometricUpdate.com, the FTC found that Clarifai was using the image without the user’s consent or knowledge, violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The government agency also said that it filed the lawsuit because its investigation was being “stonewalled by Match Group.” OkCupid originally shared the image with the AI company back in 2014.

OkCupid user Jordan Stein, whose image was shared without her knowledge or consent, brought a lawsuit against Clarifai as a result, but in March of last year, a judge ruled that Clarifai could not be sued for violating Illinois’ law because it was out of its jurisdiction. 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and other popular social platforms, has frozen hiring of new staff for some of its divisions, including Facebook Dating.

Meta’s stock price is down almost 43 percent this year, and the company has gotten serious about streamlining its business. It has stopped hiring for certain engineering roles, but also for recruiters and low-level data scientists, according to The Verge. Facebook Dating has had disappointing results despite high expectations when it first launched.

Reviews show that many Facebook Dating users were having problems matching when they used the service and blamed the problem on fake profiles proliferating on the app. Considering the number of dating apps which use Facebook’s authentication system to verify new profiles, it should be easier for the company to get rid of fake accounts to create a better experience for users.

Shares of dating company Bumble Inc rose 11 percent after news of the company’s earnings were released, with revenue beating analyst expectations.

According to Reuters, the number of total paying users across Bumble properties increased by 7.2 percent to 3 million during the first quarter of this year, increasing revenue to $211.2 million, surpassing analyst expectations of $208.30 million. Bumble apps include its signature apps, Badoo, and French dating app Fruitz among others.

Research firm Apptopia also found that Bumble downloads in the U.S. increased 20.6 percent during the first quarter, and monthly average users rose 13.7 percent compared to the same quarter last year.