Gay

Image: Tinder

Dating app Tinder has added new stickers in celebration of Pride, specifically for younger LGBTQ+ users.

The new stickers include “My First Pride,” and “I Came Out Online” to “Save Queer Spaces” and “Proud Ally.” According to Mashable, the profile stickers give new dating app users a low-pressure way to be part of the community and display their identity for Pride Month.

The My First Pride and Came Out Online stickers help first-timers to better navigate Pride Month. The idea is to easily find others attending events for the first time so they can make plans and celebrate together.

The Save Queer Spaces sticker helps connect users with others who want to preserve bars, clubs, and community centers serving the LGBTQ+ community, as these are places where they can feel safe being who they are. The Proud Ally sticker helps users show support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Image: Grindr

Grindr has launched its new cross-country bus tour “Grindr Rides America” in celebration of Pride month.

“From the Castro to Stonewall, we’ll be getting around—hop on, get off, and get your dicks on Route 66,” Grindr’s cheeky press release reads. “This is all in celebration of YOU as we toast to 15 years and counting.”

Grindr’s bus tour is also in celebration of its fifteenth anniversary, and the company will offer free HIV testing, PrEP resources, and a full-service photography studio to LGBTQ neighborhoods on its route. According to Mashable, a team from medical service Q Care Plus will be along for the ride to discuss HIV and STI prevention with attendees, as well as screening, treatment options, and how to access prep and doxy-PEP to encourage discussion and support without judgment.

Image: Grindr

Grindr has announced it has partnered with Equality in Movement in Georgia and MPOWER in Ireland to connect its users in these countries with at-home HIV testing kits.

According to the company’s blog post, Grindr says it wants to address the global HIV epidemic by making it easier for its users to have access to testing. While many countries have local testing centers, they can still be difficult to access, expensive, and many people still don’t want the stigma of going to a public place to get tested.

Users in Georgia and Ireland will have dedicated buttons on the app’s interface to order at-home self-test kits, any time of day. The app wanted the access to tests to be as simple as Covid tests have become for most folks. The company also wants to encourage more people to test for HIV by alleviating the stigma with in-person tests and allowing them to test in the privacy of their own home.

Grindr’s new Chief Privacy Officer Kelly Peterson Miranda is setting the record straight regarding the app’s privacy policies and use of personal data following allegations and a recent lawsuit.

The interview with The Record Media takes place in the wake of several allegations that Grindr has violated user privacy rights when it comes to their personal data.

The LGBTQ dating app was sued in April for allegedly sharing the HIV status of its users with third parties without their consent. Before that, its former privacy officer Ronald De Jesus has said that the company stored user data, including photos and videos, even after people deleted their accounts, which violated the app’s privacy policy.

And last year, the Electronic Privacy Information Center appealed to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Grindr for its history of abuses.

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.

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.