Online Dating

According to several news sources (ABC15.com and AZ Central) the Arizona Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Great Expectations dating service, alleging they misled their customers.

Great Expectations has said the case has no merit. This service has over 30 years of experience in matchmaking and is one of the few dating services which actually meet their clients face to face at one of their offices. They have more than a couple dozen offices spread across the US.

The suit was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court against Sun West Video, Inc which runs Great Expectations for Singles.

The suit is seeking refunds for consumers and financial penalties against the company.

The Attorney General's office alleged that Great Expectations:

• Misrepresented to consumers the overall number of participating members and members in certain age groups.
• Told consumers that two to three marriages occurred among members every month when it had no credible basis for such statements.
• Misrepresented to consumers that it had conducted a criminal background check on all of its members.
• Used high-pressure sales tactics that included sales representatives urging consumers to contact their credit card companies to get an increased credit limit to pay for a membership.
• Showed potential new members written profiles and photographs of people they said were Great.

These allegations have not been proven in court yet but, we have decided to remove this dating site review from our categories for the time being, just to be safe.

I was reading the article "Niche dating websites help picky singles find love" at Canada.com and it got me wondering if some of these niche dating services have gone too far?

Don't get me wrong, a lot of dating niches work with most of them being based on religion or your ethnicity, or even popular interests like pets. I just have to wonder about dating sites who service niches like people who are interested in pirates (see press release). Where is this going to end? I'm sure there are people who are passionate about pirates and pirate history but I have a hard time believing there are enough singles out there so passionate about pirates that they need a dating service dedicated to them. This would be like someone creating a dating service for astronauts. Sure there are single astronauts out there but not that many. From 1978 to 2003 NASA had only trained 237, how many of these people are single? Who cares, let's start an online dating site!

The Earth Times has a press release from Chemistry.com regarding a new promotion to celebrate California's ruling to overturn the state's ban on gay marriage. Chemistry will offer free 7 day memberships to anyone in the state of California who visits this promotional page on Monday, June 16. This is the same day San Francisco will begin issuing marriage licenses.

I'm glad Chemistry supports equal opportunity for all couples who want to declare their commitment, I just have to wonder what is so special about this particular promotion. We have been advertising a 7 day free trial Chemistry promotion for all U.S. and Canadian singles for a while now. It is available from our Chemistry review or our Dating Service Coupon page (which also has some good deals for other online dating sites as well).

India's matrimony market is estimated to be worth almost $230 million annually (£118 million). This includes online dating and matrimony services which brings in about $13.5 million (£7 million). An Indian matchmaking service called Shaadi.com has become quite popular among singles in the 20 to 40 age range and is now one of India's five most popular sites according to the Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. The dating and marriage service reports it has over 10 million members and is responsible for a million marriages worldwide since its inception in 1997. 6000 profiles are created every day on the site with 60% of them being male. Shaadi.com is not just a website, there are more than 150 Shaadi Centres in 87 Indian cities. This allows parents and children to sit down with a relationship adviser and review the dating services huge database of potential matches.

One of the reasons Shaadi.com succeeds according to the Telegraph is because:

The unofficial eHarmony Blog got the scoop on eHarmony's traffic statistics being accessible to the public at Quantcast. eHarmony has been a Quantified Publisher since February 2008. This means the traffic information is very accurate because a script or tracking image is inserted into every page at eHarmony which allows detailed tracking of all visitors.

The first thing to realize is (if you don't know too much about this type of thing), don't worry about being tracked. It happens on most web sites. Online businesses(and blog owners) want to know about their traffic, since obviously visitors are the bread and butter. If you do worry about it, visit the sites Privacy Policy where they should tell you what is done with this information. The main things most companies want to know about visitors are:

• How many there are?
• How many come back?
• Where are they coming from?
• What do they visit on the site?

NWA.CO.UK is reporting that Match.com has partnered with Russell Grant Horoscopes. Russell Grant is a popular spot for horoscope enthusiasts in the United Kingdom. You can access the dating service under the Free Dating menu item on the left of the site. Russell Grant Dating is powered by Match.com and allows you to search for members by your star sign. The marketing director of Russell Grant Astrology, is quoted as saying:

This is a unique and exclusive partnership that brings together the leaders in astrology and online dating to give singles the best possible chance of finding love.

Russel Grant Dating is Match.com UK but with a modified Russell Grant Logo at the top of the page. It contains all the functions and features of the normal Match.com dating site. I'm surprised they didn't modify the Match.com partner dating site theme more to make it fit better with the look and feel of Russell Grant Horoscopes.

There are two things I have questions about. Why is the dating link labelled Free Dating, when it is not? You can create a free membership but you not allowed to communicate with members until you pay for a subscription. While there is nothing wrong in paying for a dating service subscription, this is misleading people. The other thing I wondered about is why there is a link at the top of the page that says "Log In to your DatingAgency.com profile". This is even visible when you have logged into Match.com. The link goes to another Russell Grant dating site. I have a feeling this is probably the original dating site before Match.com's partnership. I'm surprised Match.com allowed these two things to happen. It looks unprofessional and is misleading, 2 things Match.com usually does not do.