Legal

In March, Chicago Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart sued Craigslist for allowing pimps and prostitutes to use their classifieds service (see Story). Since then Craigslist has faced mounting bad press about their Erotic Services category and the famous "Craigslist Killers" which used their site to stalk their victims. With the mounting legal troubles Craigslist has changed the requirements to post an ad in their Erotic Services category. Users must now pay a fee with a credit card and provide a working phone number.

Last week Craigslist caught a break, U.S. District Judge John F. Grady dismissed Tom Dart's request to force the web site to eliminate its erotic services category. The federal judge stated that Sheriff Dart cannot sue Craigslist for the conduct of its users.

For more on the story, read NBC Chicago and to find out more about this classifieds website, read our review of Craigslist.

Élan Relationships has been around for 18 years now and claims to be Chicago's premiere personal introduction service. At least one woman disagrees. Sheena Finnegan signed up last May for $3,500 with the hopes of meeting her soul mate. Élan Relationships allegedly promised her:

... to find her “genuine, high caliber, professional” matches by setting her up with six “qualified introductions” in a six-month period ...

According to Finnegan all she got was heartache, frustration and disappointment.

By the end of June Sheena had only been on two dates with men she felt did not suit her. She also had been scheduled for 3 other dates which were all cancelled, and not by her. Since Sheena had a number of cancelled dates, she did get her membership extended by one month. After some more dates and two more cancellations Finnegan had had enough. She found that none of the men were what was promised to her. She contacted Élan Relationships and asked for a refund and was refused. According to Sheena Finnegan:

the company’s contract was “misleading…false…fraudulent” and did not make any favorable matches for her.

In her lawsuit Sheena is asking for an unspecified amount of money in damages and an injunction to prevent Élan from continuing to practice the alleged deceitful business techniques.

Élan Relationships is a member of the Better Business Bureau and they have been a BBB Accredited business since November 2006. They currently hold a BBB Rating of B. According to the BBB, the company Élan Relationships has had only a few complaints filed against them, with most of them either being Resolved or Administratively Closed due to a fair offer being made.

For a list of other personal matchmakers, try our Matchmaking Services category.

Thomas Wong originally filed his petition against True.com for their auto billing and renewal practices of membership subscriptions on June 12, 2007. In March of 2009 a class action lawsuit was filed (see Story). As of September 22, 2009, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas approved the settlement. TrueBeginnings LLC has agreed to pay $1.5 million into a settlement fund over a period of a year in which former True.com subscribers are eligible to make a claim. True.com denies any allegations and wanted the case settled so they can move on and distance themselves from further bad press.

Members of the settlement class have until October 21, 2009, to submit claims forms to participate in the settlement. For more information on this, visit WONG V TRUEBEGINNINGS, LLC.

eHarmony recently received a complaint in a letter from eRecruitment which stated that the dating site is infringing on their patents. eRecruitment is a job search site based in the United Kingdom that hold several patents which deal with classifying and indexing a website's members personal information. In the letter, eRecruitment told eHarmony to either shut down their dating site or start paying licensing fees.

eHarmony’s attorneys from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe asked Judge Paul Friedman at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to declare that the company had not infringed on patents owned by eRecruitment.

In my opinion this looks like someone who just wants to make a quick buck off of eHarmony. In the unlikely case that eRecruitment ends up successfully suing eHarmony, then all dating sites would be in trouble. Of course we have seen frivolous claims like this before. I forget who the company was but, there was one a few years ago that was attempting to sue any website who streamed video over the internet.

For more on the story, read The Blog of LegalTimes.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart released a report last Thursday regarding a complaint filed last year against Facebook, by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). The complaint is in regards to privacy and personal information about Facebooks members, in which the report found that Facebook keeps indefinitely, even after an account is closed. This and other privacy shortfalls (including third party access via Facebook Applications to users personal data) will need to be fixed or Facebook may be facing legal troubles.

Facebook released a statement which said that new privacy features are being introduce soon, to remedy any concerns people may have. In 30 days Stoddart will review any actions by Facebook. If she finds that they are not making any progress on her recommendations, then, by using Canadian federal privacy laws under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), she may take the case to the Federal Court of Canada for enforcement.

This potential case may also raise privacy red flags in other countries, which I am sure Facebook does not want.

I bet a few dating sites will also be watching this story closely to see what Facebook does and how the Privacy Commissioner reacts. Most dating sites as far as I know keep users information for a long time as well (see Story).

For more on the story read Yahoo News, and here is the report of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's findings.

In April we looked at another federal lawsuit which claims eHarmony's matching system is not scientifically proven (see Story). The lawyers for the lawsuit (Lange & Koncius LLP) have now setup a website for people to get more information. You can find the website called eHarmony Class Action Litigation (eHarmonyClassAction.com). Thanks to the unofficial eHarmony Blog for this information.

In my opinion, from all of the information I have read about dating sites, eHarmony probably has put the most effort into their matching system. They have a number of doctors on staff at eHarmony Labs who are experts in their fields of study and whose purpose is to research and improve the matching system. eHarmony spends over $3 million a year at this. While, they haven't released much scientific proof or had many independent studies done (as far as I know), if any dating site can back up their matching system with scientific research, it is eHarmony.

For more on eHarmony Labs, read eHarmony's Love Lab