Legal

The Communications Decency Act (CDA) regulates indecency and obscenity on the Internet in the United States. It also declares that operators of Internet services were not to be considered as publishers unless they actually created the material. This makes them not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their web sites. This includes everything from forum posts and comments too submitted articles.

The Friendfinder Network recently got into legal trouble when someone complained that someone else had created a fake profile on the dating site that “reasonably identified” her. Friendfinder did remove the profile from the dating site but the profile information and photo was still being used in advertising. The reason the Communications Decency Act was not applied in this case is:

... the right to control the commercial use of one’s identity is it considered a general intellectual property right. The judge reasoned that Friendfinder wasn’t entitled to the CDA’s usual brand of immunity due to the intellectual property provision that states the CDA does not preempt intellectual property laws.

In section 5 of Friendfinders Terms of Use Agreement it states:

By posting content to any public area of FriendFinder, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to FriendFinder Network, Inc. and its members, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information, rights of publicity, and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works and other media, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.] This basically gives Friendfinder ownership over almost anything posted on their site. This may raise alarm bells when you read it but, it is common practice among dating services, social networks and other web services in which you post information.

While I am far from being a lawyer it appears to me that FriendFinder got into trouble because the information posted in the profile by the other person did not belong to them to post in the first place. Since the information posted in the profile was about some other actual person they had no right to post it, therefore they did not have the right to give up the general intellectual property right of the material to Friendfinder.

It is a sticky situation. Overall the person who actually posted the material is responsible, but Friendfinder did continue to use the information in advertising even after they were made aware of the problem with the information from that particular profile. I'm not sure how old this case actually is but, when you see profile information in FriendFinder Ads now (at least from the ads I see) they have a note at the bottom explaining "Photos and other data are for illustrative purpose only". I guess for the most part they have stopped the practice of using actual profiles in their advertising.

For the full story plus another example legal case, read the post at Public Knowledge and for more information on the CDA visit Wikipedia.

With all the news about internet dating safety bills lately, I noticed that the Spark Networks dating sites have a new warning at the bottom of their home pages. Here is the text I am referring to as quoted from AmericanSingles.com:

Spark Networks Limited does not conduct background checks on the members or subscribers of this website.

I wonder if this background checks warning is response to the New Jersey's Internet Dating Safety Act. If so, and since I don't live in the state of New Jersey, it appears they are displaying the message to everyone and not just New Jersey residents.

CNN Living has a story that looks at scam artists, internet dating and the website RomanceScams.org, where you can report on romance scams. In my opinion the article doesn't really put online dating scams into perspective but, it did have a few good examples and tips. One excellent point includes this quote about how to identify a possible scammer:

If their spelling is horrible, they use emoticons heavily and they appear to be available at unusual hours for your time zone, they may be scamming you. Scammers often work on the Internet from other countries and use photos of others they find online. Often, a simple Google search can help identify whether your online companion is legitimate or whether he or she is simply using someone else's name and photo.

This story uses some scare tactics that I don't agree with. In one case they mention that the FBI Internet Crime Report had 206,884 complaints last year about internet fraud which cost the victims over $239 million. That's a good thing to know but this statistic appears to take into account all online business including online stores, online auction sites and the list goes on. What percentage of this is deals with online dating? Where are the statistics that compare it to other online industries or email and normal mail fraud? Maybe online dating has a better track record, who knows? You can't tell from the CNN article.

The other statistic in the story I wondered about was, according to Romance Scams website, of their 30,000 members 883 people reported losing over $8 million too online scammers. This works out too almost $10,000 per person on average. This seems a little high to me. I don't know many people who have $10 grand to give to their friends and family let alone to someone online. I wish the author had expanded on this information a bit further and included a few links to some reports.

Romance Scams is a non-profit site that does offer excellent information about dealing with and identifying online scams. A lot more dating sites are starting to take this issue more seriously and have started to include easy to find "Report Abuse" links on dating profiles that allows you to identify a scammer. Dating Services also monitor and identify scammers manually and automatically through software. Singles need to know, and to watch out for online dating scams but, you do have to keep things in perspective and use common sense.

Apparently men in America using online dating sites to find woman living in other countries could be breaking a federal law. The law is called the "Marriage Broker Regulation Act" (IMBRA) and requires men who use a fee-based dating site to submit to a criminal background check, a sex offender check and must certify all previous convictions or arrests, marriages, divorces and children. An online dating service not compliant with the legislation can be sued for $5 thousand to $25 thousand and the dating service executives could face up to 5 years in prison. There is no law dealing with the woman US men may meet or US woman meeting foreign men through a dating service.

As stated in the article, the reason for the creation of the IMBRA is:

The MiamiHerald.com talks about Florida's new ''Internet predator awareness and online safety act''. The bill would require online dating services serving Florida to:

disclose online and by e-mail whether or not it conducts a criminal background check. If it does, it must tell the consumer that background checks are "fallible."

This is similar to a bill New Jersey recently passed called the Internet Dating Safety Act.

Once again True.com is trying to push this bill through. They already do background checks on its members. Both Yahoo! Personals and Match.com are reluctant to do criminal background checks since they are reported to be unreliable. I agree with a statement that a Yahoo! lobbyist made regarding True's push on internet dating legislation:

"This doesn't have to do with online predators as the bill says," said Bill Ashworth, a lobbyist with Yahoo! "This is a food fight between True.com and the rest of the Internet dating industry."

I don't think True is doing this for the safety of their members, I believe it has more to do with publicity and getting there name mentioned in news articles.

The Daily Yomiuri Online has an article called "NPA targets online dating sites / Agency wants stricter regulations as current law being ignored". The Japanese National Police Agency wants tougher regulations regarding prohibiting minors under the age of 18 from using dating services. They have found currently this regulation is largely being ignored. In a suggested revised law, dating site operators would need to take measures to confirm a member's age, such as requiring users to fax copies of ID certificates to dating site operators. There are a few other proposed changes mentioned as well for the current internet dating regulations in Japan.