Industry

Users of the popular dating app Coffee Meets Bagel woke up to a surprise on Valentine’s Day. Instead of looking at matches, they were greeted with a notice from the company saying some of their personal data had been hacked.

According to a report from CNN, the data breach occurred a few days before on February 11, but CMB executives were trying to assess the situation and the extent of the damage. In their notice, the company stated that an “unauthorized party gained access to a partial list of user details.”

Their email goes on to say: “The affected information only includes your name and email address prior to May 2018. As a reminder, we never store any financial information or passwords.”

Match Group announced that it has fully acquired dating app Hinge, owning 100 percent of the company along with other high-profile brands like Tinder and OkCupid. This news comes on the heels of Match Group’s announcement that it exceeded revenue expectations in the last quarter of 2018, causing its stock to rise.

Previously, Match Group stock had been downgraded from hold to buy by Deutsch Bank analysts. But with the earnings report, its stock climbed more than 5 percent.

Part of the appeal of Match Group to investors is that it has acquired a host of popular dating apps, including Hinge. The app has been through a rebrand over the last year, focusing on attracting more serious daters.

Online dating company eHarmony, who built its reputation for more serious daters, was recently acquired by German media company ProSeibenSat.1. The media company are the producers behind “Married at First Sight,” and have already expanded beyond television with the acquisition of Parship Elite Group, an online dating platform for long-term relationships similar to eHarmony.

It left many wondering what future plans were for eHarmony, which has seen competition lately from apps like Tinder and OkCupid, and how Parship fits into the mix.

Online Personals Watch recently interviewed Tim Schiffers, the CEO of Parship Elite Group about the acquisitions and Parship’s future plans. Schiffers said Parship plans to bring eHarmony to its platform instead of offering competing services. “We have invested a lot into our technical setup over the past few years and are happy to harness synergies in that area.”

Sunday January 6^th is the busiest day of online dating’s high season, with many people downloading apps and swiping right, hoping to find love in the cold winter months, also known as “cuffing season.”

More people are also motivated to find love thanks to New Year’s resolutions (and the cold weather). With the holidays behind us, January is the perfect time to adopt new habits, including trying a new dating app or rejoining one you’ve used before.

Research has shown over the years that the first Sunday of January is generally the best time to download a dating app and start swiping. Most apps have reported a surge in activity on this particular day, as well as generally increased activity during the month of January through February 14^th.

Tinder has fired a group of employees who brought a lawsuit against parent company Match Group and its controlling shareholder IAC, according to website The Verge who broke the story. Tinder did not reveal how many people were fired, but former communications VP Rosette Pambakian was notably among them.

Tinder employees who brought the lawsuit against Match Group alleged that the company had manipulated financial data in order to lower the company’s valuation, forcing former co-founder and CEO Sean Rad among others to accept less money than they claim their shares were worth.

In addition, the lawsuit includes Pambakian’s allegation that former CEO Greg Blatt also sexually harassed her at a company holiday party.

Bumble made headlines this year when it announced plans for an expansion into India. Though the Indian market is large and tech-savvy, western dating apps have struggled to find a foothold. India’s traditional approach to courtship has raised concerns about whether online dating has a place in a society with a history of arranged marriages, class divides, and parental oversight of relationships.

A recent survey by Indian dating app Woo reveals the ways centuries of conservative values continue to affect singles in the country. According to the data, the gender divide on dating apps is immense. Only 26 percent of users are female, while 74 percent are male - in other words, there are nearly three times as many men as women on online dating platforms in India.

For comparison, women are slightly more than 40 percent of the user base on dating apps like Bumble and Tinder in the United States. Users in the US also differ from users in India in their reasons for joining dating services. Many Americans are comfortable openly using dating platforms for hookups and casual dating, but in India, dating app users say they have more serious goals.