Online Dating

Background Checks and Identity Verification on members of dating sites have been getting a lot of attention in the media over the last year or so. This attention came to the forefront due mainly to New Jersey passing legislation called the Internet Dating Safety Act, which requires dating sites to notify visitors who live in New Jersey if they conduct criminal background checks or not on members.

Criminal Background Checks and Identity Verification both require the user to submit additional information so a search can be done. One of the many problems with most Criminal Background Checks is they don't verify the identity of the member they are dealing with. I am sure most criminals, especially when the dating site promotes the fact that they do criminal background checks, do not give out their real information. They will either give fake information or just find a name and address on the internet and pass that off for their own. Scanning criminal databases for a fake user will just return zero results, which to them means the member passed the check. The other problem with criminal background checks is (at least in the United States and Canada), there are hundreds of law enforcement databases out there and most are not communicating with each other. So, if the crime is not Federal then the chances it will be found remains small by most Background Check services.

Identity Verification relies on public record databases to do the job. Usually users are required to give their name, address and birthday. From there the verification service will search government databases for your information. When found, the service will ask you additional information on file to ensure the identity is yours. These additional questions are not always the same for every person. Questions can include, if you are married, your occupation and where you work, to the name of a relative. If this is all completed successfully then the user will have a verified status. The problem of Identity Verification services is websites like Intelius (US only) offer the same information to the general public from the same government databases for as low as a couple of bucks. A scammer could just perform one of these searches before he has to do an Identity Verification on a website.

The third type of related product is a Trust or Reputation service like the one from Iovation called ReputationManager. Here it is not necessarily the user who is trusted but the computer or electronic device they use. A unique ID is generated for each device (how this ID is generated is kept secret), and from their they can track if any previous fraudulent or suspicious activities have happen before on the computer. This can range from knowing if a previous transaction made from the computer was successful, too spamming activities like someone creating multiple accounts on a website within a certain time period.

All of these services have their problems and workaround but the best solution for a dating site would be using a combination of all these services to stop scammers. When you combine a Identity Check, with a Criminal Background Check, with a Reputation Service you can ensure maximum protection for your members. A website that offers a paid service or products can offer even further protection since they will have the additional knowledge of knowing if your bank or credit card information was verified by a financial institution.

Craigslist is fighting back from the bad press (see Story) they have received lately due to their Erotic Services classified ads category (which is now the Adult Services Category) and prostitution. They are suing Henry McMaster, the Attorney General of South Carolina for:

declaratory relief as well as a restraining order with respect to criminal charges he has threatened against the company and its executives.

The suit is in response to a threatening email they received from McMaster a couple of weeks ago telling them to either shut down Craigslist in the state of South Carolina or, face a criminal investigation and possible prosecution. Craigslist believes they are now in full compliance of the law because of the changes they recently made to the category (see Story).

For the full story, read Tech Crunch.

Match.com was the first online dating site to ever run a TV commercial back in 2004 (see Story). Now Match.com is the first to run pre-roll ads on YouTube (at least in the UK) against premium content. For online video there are 3 main types of advertising. Pre-roll runs before the video, in-roll runs during the video and post-roll, which is after the video. Ads will be sold on a CPM-basis by a sales staff and YouTube has stated that it will impose a limit of 30 seconds per ad. Both the video owner and YouTube will share in the revenue earned from displaying the advertising.

In 2008 the U.S. population was almost 304 million with roughly one third or 90 million people being single. YouTube has 80.7 unique monthly visitors and is the internet's 6th largest destination. The average user spends 54 minutes each month on the video site. This stats make it an ideal place for a dating site like Match.com to advertise since 62 percent of viewers fall in the key 34 to 55 plus age range demographic.

For more on the story, read Marketing Magazine from the UK and for more stats on YouTube, check out their sales pdf document. If you are interested in finding out more about Match.com UK, read our review of this dating site.

Online Personals Watch posted a short summary of an interview they had with the CEO of Meetic, Marc Simoncini. Among the things they discussed was the recent purchase of Match.com European operations (see Story). Currently Meetic in the UK runs the following dating sites; Meetic, DatingDirect and now Match. From the interview It looks like Meetic will be promoting only one brand per country or market. This means the Meetic dating site will be the only one of the three which is actively promoted in the United Kingdom. Will this affect DatingDirect and its membership numbers? Not really, since both sites look and function identically and they share the same member database. This means, if you sign up for one of the above mentioned dating sites, you really are then signing up for all of them as your profile will be available on all sites. On a related note, I am working on another article which I plan to further dissect how the large Dating Networks like Meetic work and if the end result is good for its members.

Here are a few more details from the eight year agreement that IAC (Match.com) and Meetic have:

1. Match has no right to manage the daily business in Europe. It will be managed by Meetic
2. There's a reciprocal right of first refusal for acquisition
3. And there will be two members on the board of Meetic, from IAC] Another interesting fact in the summary is Match Europe (not sure if this includes the UK) will have their member database merge with Meetic.

For the full interview of Marc Simoncini, check out Online Personals Watch

We just talked about live video chat and how it has not gained much ground on social networks a few stories ago. The website, All Facebook, broke the news that video chatting may indeed be coming to Facebook soon. Through surveying the JavaScript files Facebook uses for their website, a user of All Facebook found a number of notification messages which deal with video calling. With text instant messaging already in place on Facebook, it is the next logical step for them to offer a video feature. Plus, video would also then make their suite of communication tools complete.

According to an update in the article it looks like Facebook is indeed testing a video chat feature but have no cuurent plans to launch it for the general public.

For the full story, check out All Facebook.

Online dating services are being used more and more by soldiers, especially those stationed overseas. This isn't to say, the service men and woman are just using dating sites to find love with other soldiers stationed nearby. They use dating sites to meet new singles close to where they live at home in the US.

Both eHarmony and Match.com report that their dating sites are being used by soldiers while they are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. eHarmony also reports that from 2006 to 2008, percentage wise, the number of military personal who are using their matchmaking site increased by 56 percent. eHarmony research psychologist, Gian Gonzaga says:

The life-altering experience of going to war often focuses the romantic mind ... When you are reminded of your own mortality, the theory kind of boils down to, you remember what's most important to you, which is relationships.

The off duty soldiers increase access to military internet cafes and the low cost of the laptop computers has made it much easier for them to cultivate a long distance romance. Military service people also tend to take online dating more seriously and invest a lot of time in online communication than your average online dater in the United States. This means, these type of long distance relationships tend to last much longer and are more meaningful. Online dating is the soldiers only real way to create a romantic relationship with someone while they are stationed in a war zone.

For more on this story, read USA Today.