General News

Have you ever used your social networks to find a date? If you've browsed through your friend's friends on Facebook and tried to connect with someone you found attractive, then you might be interested in an app that takes things one step further.

Yoke, an app developed by Rob Fishman and Jeff Revesz and launched jat the end of March, allows you to find the single friends of your friends on Facebook. Instead of setting up a profile however, it allows you to choose five photos from your Facebook page and share the information you've posted about yourself with others who have signed up.

The great thing about this is its ease and convenience - a much more attractive option than spending a lot of time manually scanning and randomly messaging friends of friends or asking your Facebook friends to introduce you or set you up. It also separates out the non-singles because you're required to put your relationship status to participate (although you can use Yoke to find friends with similar interests and not just to date). Plus, it matches you with others based on compatible profile data - like if you live in the same city.

While Yoke matches you with others using corresponding likes or number of friends in common, it also takes a more personal approach. If you have an obscure band or musician that you like, if one of your single friends-of-friends likes it too (even if you don't have other activities or interests in common), you will be matched. Hey, you never know who you'll click with.

According to Yoke's website, matches are shown to you via a carousel where you click on an image, and that person's profile information and interests (that matched yours) appear underneath, along with the five photos they shared with Yoke. Beneath the match appear all of the friends you have in common. If you click on one of their names, you can send a message to ask about the person you've been matched with. You can let the person know you're interested in meeting them directly or you can save to your favorites and wait to hear back or make a decision later.

The problem? As usual when it comes to social media, you should be mindful of what you decide to post on your profile. Just like potential employers could look at your Facebook page to see if you're a good job candidate, potential dates can use this app to see what you've posted in your Facebook profile and make assumptions about who you are.

The upside? It's a new way to meet people, taking advantage of a great tool like Facebook. And you're essentially meeting through people you already know. What could be better than that?

For more information on how to use this social networking site as a dating tool you can read our Facebook review.

"Safety" is the word on everyone's lips when it comes to online dating. Countless news articles tell the tales of online daters scammed out of money, solicited for green cards, or sexually assaulted. It's enough to make you shudder at just the thought of joining an online dating site.

The complaint for a long time has been that no one is doing anything about it. The government, the dating sites...no one was making an effort to protect online daters from becoming victims except the daters themselves. Now, however, things are starting to change.

The California attorney general's office has announced that three online dating giants have agreed to screen for sex offenders, and enact other safety precautions, after a woman was assaulted on a date. "Consumers should be able to use websites without the fear of being scammed or targeted," Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said in a statement, and it looks like Match.com, eHarmony, and Sparks Networks agree.

The three dating sites have signed a joint statement of business principles that they hope will guard their members against sexual predators, identity theft, and financial scams, and set a positive example for the rest of the industry.

The dating services agreed to provide the attorney general's office with reports of suspected criminal activity, to check subscribers against national sex registries, to supply members with online safety tips, and to provide an easy way for users to report abuses.

Although the statement is nonbinding and carries no enforcement penalties, it does hold dating sites accountable for their members' safety. "They can't be sued for not following this, but it puts them in the public eye," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office.

The statement was prompted by the sexual assault of a woman in LA by a man she met through a popular dating site in 2010. The man pleaded no contest to sexual battery by restraint and was sentenced to a year in jail. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

The woman went on to sue this dating site and sought a court order that would require the website to check applicants' backgrounds to prevent convicted sex offenders from joining, but she dropped the suit when the site provided proof that such screening already existed.

In the new statement, Match, eHarmony, and Sparks Networks reaffirm their commitment to the safety of their members, saying it's a priority and that they hope the statement will encourage other companies to adopt similar policies.

At best, long-distance relationships are hard to handle. At worst, they're downright miserable. Unfortunately, for online daters they're a simple fact of life. When you're meeting potential mates that could live anywhere in the world, you're bound to run into at least one who catches your eye but doesn't live nearby.

One solution for long-distance couples is to cover each other's Facebook walls is sappy, sickly sweet messages that make their friends want to vomit. But the better option is Pair, the newest app that attempts to close the gap for long-distance lovers.

Pair is a bit like a private version of Facebook's new Timeline profile. The app creates a private, shared timeline for couples on which they can easily share messages, photos, videos, and locations with each other. Users can also draw pictures together in real time using the Live Sketch function, create a joint to-do list with the Shared Tasks feature, or give each other a ThumbKiss (a vibration that occurs when both users place their thumbs on the same spot on the screen). Setting it up is as simple as pairing the app with your partner and posting, then enjoying the real-time connection that lets you know when your partner is looking at the same thing as you are, at the very same time.

Thanks to all that extra functionality, Pair calls itself "Super SMS." "Our goal is to make Pair the first thing that pops into your mind when you want to share something with your partner," says the Pair blog. "These days, it's not only text messages that you want to share, but also photos, video, your location, and even things like sketches. Instead of treating these other types of messages like second class citizens, we treat them the same as text messages." Put all that together and you get "a very fun and intimate timeline between you and your partner" that "helps you feel close even when you're apart."

And perhaps best of all is the contest that celebrates the app's debut: one lucky winner will walk away with a pair of brand new iPhones.

The app is available now from the Apple App Store, and an Android version is reportedly on the way. Cross-platform functionality will be available, because it would be a true tragedy if a relationship that could survive the distance couldn't survive incompatible operating systems.

Privacy online is a major issue facing the 21st century world, that much is clear. And it's not just social networks and search engines that are putting your privacy at risk - online dating sites are also showing little regard for the safety of your personal information. They rarely use secure encryption, they habitually sell your private data to advertising companies, and they're legally bound to release your personal information if presented with a subpoena or court order.

The question now is "What's being done to stop it?" Is anyone looking out for your rights as an online dater?

Well...yes and no. Attempts are being made to increase online privacy, but they fall far short of the steps that actually need to be taken.

There's the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which deals with government intrusions, but it was enacted in 1986, long before the Internet took on its current form and online dating became just as common as meeting someone in a bar.

Taking the issue to court doesn't seem to be making much headway either. In a case mentioned by Lori Andrews in her book I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did, it was argued that a data aggregator was not liable for accessing private information that was stored on a computer because the intent was to make a profit, not to commit a crime. It sounds crazy, but it's not an isolated incident. Courts have a long history of favoring tech companies and aggregators over users.

Other laws have been equally ineffective, Andrews notes to AlterNet. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act makes it illegal to break into a computer to access information, but it "cannot apply to data aggregators because the person suing must prove a direct hit of $5,000 as a result." The Stored Communications Act, which prohibits accessing stored electronic information, may sound like a solid defense, but "courts have interpreted the law in such a way that if a Web site (Facebook, OkCupid) gives consent for a user's information to be tracked by another site (data aggregation company), users whose information is being shared can't sue."

Most recently, the Obama administration released a proposal for an online privacy "bill of rights" that calls for tech companies and consumer groups to come together to construct regulations to protect consumers. Some agreed to the adoption of a Do Not Track option, but it seems unlikely that companies that are not known for their ability to regulate themselves on privacy issues would suddenly become effective protectors of online privacy.

Still, it's a step in the right direction, and it's good to know that a real dialogue is finally being opened.

Related Article: Is Your Private Life Really Private When You're Dating Online? (Part II)

A lot of headlines about online dating come across my desktop (er...laptop), but most of them don't merit more than a cursory read. This one, though, caught my eye recently: "Meexo Is the Uncreepy Dating App You Might Actually Consider Using."

Everyone is calling mobile dating the next big thing, but what's holding it back from a total takeover is an unmistakable creep-factor that just won't go away. Do you really want your dates to know where you are, all the time? What happens if someone you're not interested in sees that you're in the same venue and proceeds to pursue you? Awkward.

Meexo, selected as a finalist for the SXSW Accelerator Competition, is hoping to fix that problem and clear mobile dating's tarnished name. The first thing that sets it apart is that it's only a mobile service - there's no website or online social networking experience to go along with it.

The second thing that makes Meexo stand out is its stance on privacy. "Each person's account is tied to their particular device," says Romain David, CEO and co-founder of the company, "and they're only allowed to make one account per device-although they can sign in through multiple devices." With that safeguard in place, people can't make multiple accounts with fake profiles.

For those who are still worried that there's a stigma attached to online dating, Meexo also has a plan in place to prevent your family and friends from accidentally stumbling upon your profile. The app connects to your Facebook account, performs a sort of reverse "find friend" search, then uses the info it finds to ensure sure your contacts never discover your Internet dating habits.

To combat the problem of being flooded with messages from curious suitors, Meexo users are given virtual currency to spend on the site. Every message sent costs you (although messages received are free), which will hopefully force members to be more selective about who they chose to contact.

And for the geeks among you, Meexo promises to provide a range of geek-friendly features to determine compatibility. Take music tastes, for instance: you and a date can connect phones via Bluetooth, then have Meexo scan your music libraries to see what you have in common. An animation of the cover art of songs and albums you both own will float across from one screen to the other.

Meexo is clearly one smart app. So smart, in fact, that it gets smarter the more you use it. Think of it as the Pandora of dating - as you browse profiles and indicate which ones you find most interesting, the app learns about your preferences and makes more intelligent matches for you.

Meexo is currently available for free on the iTunes store.

We've already talked about HTTPS encryption and the potential for security breaches on online dating Web sites, but there's plenty more to learn about privacy and online dating.

What happens if you meet your match and are ready to leave online dating behind? Or if you decide to take a hiatus in favor of trying your luck offline? Or if you get tired of online dating altogether? You can just delete your profile and all that information will disappear, right?

Nope.

In "Six Heartbreaking Truths About Online Dating Privacy," the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that dating sites have an incentive to keep users' personal information instead of purging it. The user may return to the site, or their information may be a source of a little extra cash when it's sold to data aggregation companies (which, Tana Ganeva notes on AlterNet, it generally is).

"The operators of these sites cull vast amounts of data from users (age, interests, ethnicity, religion, etc.), then package it up and lend or sell the data to online marketers or affiliates," says the EFF report. one dating site was caught red-handed doing exactly that, without even attempting to make it anonymous. Lokame, a company that packages user data for advertisers, purchased a bundle of private information from the dating site, like "education levels, religion, whether the user had kids or pets, and how often they drink and smoke."

And guess what? It's not just advertisers who are eager to get their hands on that kind of intell. "How would that Ashley Madison adultery account play during a nasty divorce?" muses Tana Ganeva. Savvy daters should be aware of their sites' privacy policies and have a full understanding what the site would do if faced with a subpoena or court order. Users should also note that, though a site may promise not release information for a subpoena, it can't legally protect the data fully.

And no, that's not all. There are many other simple ways that info you think is private can suddenly find itself in the public sphere. "Photos from Web sites can end up in Google Image search," writes Ganeva, "revealing the identity of a user trying to stay anonymous by using a psuedonym (increasing advances in facial recognition technology will make it easier and easier for a person's identity to be ascertained with just a picture)."

Choose what you share wisely, because just about anyone could find your personal data from a dating site.

Related Article: Is Your Private Life Really Private When You're Dating Online?