Online Dating

An article on The Wall Street Journal website reviews the negative side of eHarmony settling the New Jersey anti-discrimination complaint (see Story). The complaint was about same sex matching not being available on eHarmony.

Some eHarmony customers feel

that homosexual activists have succeeded in taking a private business hostage. Why should eHarmony have to serve every type of clientele? Do Jewish dating sites have to serve Christians? Can meat-eaters demand a hamburger at vegetarian restaurants?

These are all good points but are they relevant counter points in this same-sex matching case? It wouldn't really make sense for a Christian to join a Jewish dating site. The site is designed with the Jewish faith in mind and the members who joined it obviously want to find a partner who is Jewish and makes their religion an important part of their lives. If a Christian did join the site, there wouldn't be much there for them, plus there are plenty of Christian dating sites they could join instead. A popular Jewish dating site, JDate, doesn't allow you to select Catholic as your religious background but you can select "Willing to Convert" or "Will tell you later". I don't see this as discriminatory, towards Catholics, as there are plenty of Catholic dating sites to join. If there wasn't then, maybe it would be a different story. An extreme example of this type of thinking, would be going into a Jewish Synagogue and demanding they allow other religions to practice there.

This is a slippery slope. You shouldn't discriminate against race, age, sexual orientation, gender and religion. The question is what is not going far enough and what is going too far? Should we start cracking down on businesses that offer seniors discounts or ladies nights? I don't think so. Should eHarmony have offered same-sex matching? Probably...

Check out the full story at The Wall Street Journal.

A press release from Chemistry about the eHarmony New Jersey settlement, points out the fact that the dating matchmaking service Chemistry has always had an open mind and accepted singles looking for same sex partners. Thomas Enraght-Moony, CEO of Match.com and Chemistry.com is quoted as saying:

It's a shame that Dr. Neil Clark Warren's sudden acceptance came at the forced hand of the legal system.

With this release Chemistry is just taking advantage of eHarmony's reluctance with offering same sex matching. This issue has generated a lot of publicity in which Chemistry wants to be a part of. This is a marketing trend in which Chemistry started when they launched several TV commercials in the last year pointing out eHarmony only matches heterosexual singles.

The press release also points out, eHarmony has flip-flopped on the reasons why they don't offer gay matching. Reasons listed include that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states and eHarmony matching system is based only on information about heterosexual couples.

The Chemistry release mentions as well, gay users will still have to leave eHarmony and go to another site. I do have to wonder why eHarmony is starting a whole new site. Why not just make it a part of the main eHarmony dating site? Members of eHarmony cannot perform searches for singles and only receive matches from eHarmony themselves. So, members who want same-sex matches and members who want heterosexual matches would never mingle (if that is what they are worried about).

A judge in California has ordered eHarmony and the plaintiffs of a class action discrimination case into mediation. The two legal teams will now have to try and reach a settlement outside of court. Recently eHarmony settled a class action case in New Jersey (see Story) which resulted in some money to be paid out and a new same-sex matching site to be open called Compatible Partners. With the New Jersey settlement eHarmony has stated it makes the California case moot. The California plaintiffs say it doesn't go far enough. We will just have to wait and see what happens. The case is scheduled to go to trial October 2009, if no settlement agreement is reached. The lawyers for both sides plan to meet on December 3rd to decide on a mediator and the time required to reach an agreement.

For the full article visit PCMag.com.

November 18th, 2008 is the day that Match.com officially passed the 1 Billion winks sent, mark. A wink is used to notify other members you are interested in them without actually sending an email. Currently Match.com members send over 735,000 winks a day, worldwide.

A wink in my opinion is not the best way to notify someone you are interested. It basically puts the onus on the other single now to strike up a conversation through email (which almost never works). If you really want the best chances of getting someone's interest, send a well crafted email.

See our previous story on the subject . For more general information on this dating site, read our Match.com review.

As mention in a story we did in the spring, Avalanche is on track and has finished their first phase of international expansion. Avalanche is the parent company of Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor. These dating sites are now available in Spanish, Portuguese and German languages. Plus, subscribers can now pay by using the popular PayPal service. Avalanche decided to offer Paypal as a payment option because:

Statistically, Europe as a whole has less than 50% penetration rate for credit cards, with specific countries significantly lower, as Europeans prefer local payment options to pay for transactions.

Members who use Paypal gets the added advantage of not sharing financial information and are able to use many additional payment options. This means international members don't need a US bank account anymore.

Read our Date.com review, Amor.com review and Matchmaker.com review for more information on these dating services.

Late yesterday a press release went out by eHarmony which informed us they had settled a 3 year old allegation with the New Jersey Attorney General. The settlement was about eHarmony violating the New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination and not allowing a gay / same-sex matching service. Among $50,000 settlement money awarded to the NJ Attorney General Office and $5,000 to the original plaintiff (Eric McKinley) eHarmony has agreed to launch a same sex matching service by March 31, 2009. The new dating site is called Compatible Partners. In eHarmony's FAQ about the settlement they mention that the site will be free to the first 10,000 members who register within one year of the dating sites launch. Compatible Partners and eHarmony will be separate sites, with separate matching pools. If you seek same gender matching at eHarmony you will be directed to Compatible Partners.

The FAQ also points out:

The Compatible Partners site will have a statement posted to inform members that its Compatibility Matching System™ is solely based on research involving married heterosexual couples.

Previously eHarmony has stressed that their matching system was designed to match heterosexual couples and it would not work well with same sex matching. Is this really a win for gay activists then? One other interesting point from the FAQ is, because of the settlement eHarmony has not been found in violation of the law. Basically then eHarmony is being forced to create a gay dating site, not because it's the right thing to do but, because they do not want any more negative publicity. In the end eHarmony really wins. All this publicity surrounding eHarmony and same sex matching will more than pay for the settlement.

On a side note, the State of New Jersey seems to have something against online dating sites. Early this year they brought in the controversial Internet Dating Safety Act.

For more information about this matching service, read our eHarmony review.