General News

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?

You hear a lot about privacy when it comes to online dating. When all of your potential mates are hidden behind anonymous profiles and screennames, it's an understandably big issue...but most of the discussion is focused on a very specific topic: how to keep yourself safe from other unscrupulous daters.

These days, privacy is a major concern everywhere, from the new Google privacy policy to the continually changing privacy policy on Facebook. And that begs the question: what about the dating sites themselves? Is your personal information safe? Is your private life really private when you're dating online?

Tana Ganeva explored that question in a recent AlterNet article called Is Your Sex Life Really Private? The Truth About Online Dating Sites. "Dating sites amass huge amounts of private data about their users," she writes, and "according to a new report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, they do a really bad job of keeping it private." That means that your personal info - like sexual orientation and relationship history - could be obtained by a wide range of interested parties, from future employers, to advertising companies, to, of course, hackers.

It all begins with security, which many dating sites lack. A relatively inexperienced hacker could gain access to someone's profile without much difficulty - it's as easy as being on the same open network as someone logged into their online dating account. "Given the lack of security on most dating sites, it would be a trivial matter for someone with mediocre skill to spy on your activity or take over your entire account if you log on to many dating sites using shared wifi account, like when you are in a hotel, coffee shop, or library," Rainey Reitman, the activism director at EFF, told AlterNet.

The secure HTTPS encryption that's used in many other fields - online banking, for example - is woefully underused in the world of online dating. Many dating sites don't use it as their default setting and some, like OkCupid, don't use it at all.

Unfortunately, this is not a "What if?" used to scare daters into protecting their private information more strongly. Breaches in security have already happened, like an incident that occurred in January when a hacker broke into the mobile app Grindr and posted personal information to a Web site. The site has since been taken down, but the message was sent loud and clear: when it comes to online dating, privacy and safety concerns aren't just about other daters. They're also about the dating site itself.

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

These days Facebook is getting a lot of criticism about their privacy policy, and while I have to agree that the amount of data Facebook collects on its users is staggering and more than a little scary, at least they're now putting it to good use. Enter Facebook Data, a team that "builds scalable platforms for the collection, management, and analysis of data."

Facebook Data recently released a report called "The Right Time for Love: Tracking The Seasonality of Relationship Formation." Using U.S. Facebook data from 2010 and 2011, the team looked at how different times of year affect the beginnings and endings of relationships. They started by examining changes from non-coupled relationship statuses (like "Single" or "Divorced") to coupled statuses (like "In a relationship" or "Engaged"), then compared that figure against the number of changes in the opposite direction.

They found that Christmas and Valentine's Day are both good days to try your luck in love. Far more people paired up on those days than split up:

• Feb. 14: 49% more new relationships than break-ups
• Dec. 25: 34% more
• Dec. 24: 28% more
• Feb. 15: 22% more

Another big day for relationships shows that most Facebook users can take a joke, even when it comes to their relationships: April Fool's Day. As the fifth biggest day for a net increase in relationships, April 1st saw 20% more relationship initiations than splits. Many were clearly just in the spirit of the silly holiday, however, as the following day was the most extreme day in the other direction. April 2nd saw 11% more break-ups than new relationships.

Looking at the data on a monthly basis, summertime seemed to be the most problematic for relationships. In 2010 and 2011, May through August saw a low point in the daily net change in relationships across Facebook users of all age groups.

The Facebook Data team also found patterns at a weekly level. They discovered a net gain in relationships after the weekend - Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were the biggest days for the announcements of new romances to hit the social networking site. In contrast, breakups were more likely to be reported in the days leading up to the weekend, reaching a peak on Friday and Saturday.

In speculating on why these patterns exist, the Facebook Data team believes that "One explanation could be that people looking for a change tend to end their old relationships in time to spend the weekend with friends or get back in the game with someone new." Another theory is that "breaking up is hard to do, and having a difficult conversation has to wait until the work week winds down." To explain the net gain in relationships at the beginning of the week, the team posits that it "may be a visible echo of the weekend's festivities -- and the new social ties that result."

For information on how to use this social network to find people to date, you can read our Facebook review.

Legislation (HB4083) designed to make online dating safer for users in Illinois passed the Illinois House late last week with a vote of 83 to 26.

This legislation requires all online dating sites operating in Illinois to provide a disclaimer on their websites stating whether or not they conduct background checks on their members. This bill is very similar to the ones passed by New York state 2 years ago and by New Jersey about 4 years ago.

A number of dating sites already have such warnings on their services visible by all members. The problem with this bill is that it implies that if a background check is done then you are safe. Background checks can be helpful but they do have several limitations. One is that they rely on information given by the person. If a scammer is on a dating site, it is unlikely that he will use his real information. Another problem is that there is no one database of records and reports on criminals. There are local, state and national databases that each record information in their own way and may not even be accessible by background checks run by companies.

For a more complete explanation of what Background Checks offer you can read our Background Checks category description. For more on the story you can read STL Today.

What wins out on online dating sites: job status or social status?

Where are all the sensitive men hiding?

Those are the questions answered by two new dating studies, conducted by Lovestruck.com and Chemistry.com.

Lovestruck.com's new profile verification service, called "Lovestruck Verified," has revealed a significant difference between genders in what matters to members when authenticating their dating profile. Lovestruck Verified helps combat online dating fraud by cross-checking users' profiles against the 'Big 3' social IDs: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Lovestruck found a clear preference between genders for which types of verification were used. Male members are 36% more likely than women to verify their profiles, including their job titles, via their their LinkedIn accounts. Women, on the other hand, are 39% more likely than men to cross-check their photos, age, and relationship status against their Facebook accounts. Twitter is the least popular of the three options and shows no difference between the sexes. What does all that mean? It seems that men are more interested in verifying their job status, while women prefer to authenticate their social status.

In other online dating research, Chemistry.com ranked America's Top Ten Cities to Find a Sensitive Man in January, hoping to help single gals find a special someone around Valentine's Day. They found that the highest concentrations of sensitive men are located along the east coast, from Florida to New York, with three popular vacation destinations taking the top three spots: Pompano Beach in Florida, Roanoke in Virginia, and West Hollywood in California. Ann Arbor, Michigan, known for being a college sports town, ranked as the least likely place to find a sensitive man.

Dr. Helen Fisher, Chief Scientific Advisor to Chemistry.com, weighed in on the findings: Sensitive men, known as Builders, are traditional. They deeply value loyalty, duty, respectability and proper moral conduct. They want to do the "right" thing. Builders go way out of their way to keep their social relationships running smoothly. So they watch, listen, and gauge what they need to do to help others and they do it naturally. It's these chivalrous qualities that make a sensitive man."

Rounding out the top ten are:

1. Nashville, Tennessee
2. Buffalo, New York
3. Sarasota, Florida
4. Greenville, South Carolina
5. Wilmington, North Carolina
6. Indianapolis, Indiana
7. Staten Island, New York

For more information on one of the dating sites mentioned in this article, please read our review of Chemistry.com