Hinge

A majority of dating platforms have signed on to a new dating safety code in Australia, in an effort to crack down on dating app users who violate policies.

According to News.com, dating app users who “harass, threaten, or share unwanted explicit photos” could have their accounts terminated across multiple platforms at the same time, intended to create a safer space overall for online dating. Seventy-five percent of companies operating in Australia have signed on to the new industry standard, including Match Group (which operates Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid among others), Bumble and Grindr.

A recurring problem with dating apps is user safety, specifically surrounding the growing number of users who receive unsolicited images. If a perpetrator is banned from one platform, they can easily move on to other platforms, so the new safety standard is intended to prevent this from happening.

Dating app Hinge is doubling down on efforts to curb ghosting on its app with a new feature called Your Turn Limits.

According to the company’s press release, Your Turn Limits encourages a user with eight or more matches left waiting for a response to their messages to either reply or end the conversation before that user can match with someone new.

“With the launch of Your Turn Limits, we’re testing a new way to help our users focus on quality over quantity – keeping intentionality at the core of their dating experience,” said Justin McLeod, Founder and CEO of Hinge, in a statement. “We’ve heard from daters how they’re feeling overwhelmed, distracted, and, simply put, burnt out.”

Image: Hinge

Match Group announced in its first quarter earnings report that Tinder’s paying users were down for the sixth quarter in a row, but Hinge’s paying users continue to rise.

According to Tech Crunch, Hinge has seen a whopping 31 percent increase in paying users year over year, now up to 1.4 million. This is far less than Tinder’s 10 million paying users, but as Tinder continues on its downward trend, its paying users dropping 9 percent from this time last year, Hinge offers a beacon of hope.

Dating apps in general have struggled in the last year, and companies like Match Group and Bumble have been trying to address it with more exciting paid features and additional security protocols, like Verification on Tinder. However, dating app users continue to drop their subscriptions and opt not to pay for features, especially younger users who are turning to free platforms like social media apps to connect.

Dating app Tinder continues to lose paying subscribers according to Match Group’s latest earnings report. Match Group’s overall revenue for Q1 has been impacted by Tinder’s ongoing struggles, but it continues to hold strong in the dating app market overall.

According to Fast Company, Match Group said that Tinder’s paying user base for the first quarter fell 9 percent from the same quarter last year. The company’s CEO Bernard Kim remained optimistic, saying that they expect to slow user declines in the second half of the year.

However, Match Group’s revenue is up, with net income at $123.2 million for the first quarter of 2024 compared to $120.8 million this time last year, according to Marketwatch. Revenue rose 9 percent for the company to $859.6 million, compared to $787.1 million the same time last year. (Match Group revenue also beat overall analyst expectations of $855.8 million.)

Tinder and Hinge announced new features to ramp up safety for their users, including sharing date details with family and friends and filtering unwanted language from comments and messages.

Tinder’s new safety feature Share My Date allows users to share date plans they make with their family and friends for additional safety, including details like location, date and time along with their match's photo. They can do this using the feature up to 30 days in advance, according to USA Today.

While Tinder says about 30 percent of its users already share this information with close friends or family, it makes it much more convenient and top-of-mind to be able to share via the app.

A new study from the research team at Mozilla has found that dating apps are collecting and selling more information than its users might be aware of.

According to The Washington Post, Mozilla found that 80 percent of the dating apps they reviewed – which include popular apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge among others – may share the personal data of users with their advertisers. In fact, the privacy policies that users must agree with to use these platforms make it clear that their personal information could be sold. But how many are reading the fine print?

Spark Networks’ privacy policy was particularly specific and alarming for its apps JDate, Christian Mingle and Elite Singles. It stated that the apps might collect “sensitive information” including political affiliation, union memberships, and your “sexual preferences and experiences,” according to the Post.