Match Group

NSW, Australia’s police force, was in talks with Match Group about new safety proposals to address sexual assault among daters that meet over the company’s apps, but Match Group has so far rejected implementing them.

The proposals from NSW could pose challenges regarding user privacy. The policing agency suggested using AI to scan conversations between users for potential red flags according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). NSW also proposed a portal for police to access any reports of sexual assault sent to Match Group’s dating apps. 

"We recognize we have an important role to play in helping prevent sexual assault and harassment in communities around the world,” Match Group said in a statement. "We are committed to ongoing discussions and collaboration with global partners in law enforcement and with leading sexual assault organizations like RAINN to help make our platforms and communities safer.”

Match Group testified in front of the U.S. Senate recently, arguing that tech giants Apple and Google are allowing underage users to access its dating apps.

Underage users have been able to download dating apps with age restrictions even while signed into their Apple or Google accounts, simply by clicking “yes” on a pop-up verification notice that asks if they are 18 or older. Neither Apple nor Google cross-checks the verification with their own data, and neither has set up a process to prevent these users from accessing the apps beyond the pop-up notice. 

Match Group’s chief legal officer Jared Sine testified on April 21st, according to Bloomberg News, saying that Apple and Google are allowing people under 18 years of age to download their dating apps despite the age restrictions. According to Sine, these companies are aware of the problem and ignoring it anyway; and they refuse to share personal user data with Match Group to address it.

Tinder has announced a partnership with language learning platform Duolingo to offer lessons to its users and bridge the language barrier gap for long-distance dates.

The Match Group dating app has offered to give 100,000 users a free month of Duolingo Plus, an online service which offers lessons in multiple languages. According to Tinder, 76 percent of its users who wanted to match with people from other countries found that they were matching with dates who spoke languages other than their own, a barrier to connection. Tinder saw an opportunity to help them with Duolingo.

Dating app Hinge is now offering prompts via their video chat feature to help guide virtual daters towards a more engaging, fun conversation.

According to The Zoe Report, once you start chatting with someone on Hinge, the new feature will let one of you swipe through prompts to ask during the call. There are eight main types of prompts to choose, starting with The Warm-Up (which are ice-breakers to get you started). Hinge then moves on to Dive in Deep (which gets into personal questions), Behind the Scenes (insight into your daily life and habits), Not So Serious (“fun and out-of-the-box” questions), Dim the Lights (if you’re looking to get romantic), Underrated or Overrated (opinions on some more controversial or polarizing subjects), and finally Let’s Delete Hinge. The last one is assuming the call is going well and you’re going to take things offline.

Hinge has called this new offering a “virtual vibe check” so daters don’t feel the pressure to meet someone in person before having a conversation and getting a sense of who they are.

Apple announced in early April that it will soon be rolling out its new privacy notification for users who download any app from its store. The company didn’t give a specific launch date but said that it would happen “in the coming weeks” according to Reuters. 

Apple has created a one-time notice that requires an app developer to ask for the user’s consent before the app is able to track personal data and share it with third parties, according to Reuters. CEO Tim Cook described the notification in a podcast with tech journalist Kara Swisher, saying it will appear as a short checklist of how the app will use data, to make it easier and more transparent than sifting through the standard pages-long privacy policies that most people do not read. 

Digital advertisers and app developers are worried that the notification would cause many more users to decline permissions. 

Image: OkCUpid

OkCupid has launched a new profile badge for users to advertise their views on climate change in honor of Earth Day.

The dating app company will prompt its users with the question: “Are you concerned about climate change & want a profile badge to show it’s important to you?” For those who choose to answer in the affirmative, a Climate Change Advocate badge will be automatically added to their profile. 

In addition, these users will be featured in the Climate Change Stack (categories where users can easily search potential matches according to interests), and OkCupid also plans to donate $1 per profile badge to EarthDay.org, up to $25,000. EarthDay.org is the world’s largest recruiter of for the environmental movement, which began on the first Earth Day in 1970.