Legal

Yoel Roth, former head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, has now accepted a position as vice president of trust and safety at Match Group.

According to Tech Crunch, Roth will be responsible for developing policies and standards concerning safety across all Match Group apps.

The new VP made the announcement on his LinkedIn page: “As they say… some personal news! I swiped right on Match Group! 15 years ago, I started studying what we now call ‘trust and safety’ because the then-new world of dating apps felt like the Wild West; it’s truly a dream come true to get to roll up my sleeves and work to protect the millions of people making connections on our apps worldwide.”

Dating app Tinder has agreed to provide more transparency about its pricing for premium services to users in the EU. The agreement follows a probe from the European Union’s consumer watchdog agencies when complaints surfaced from daters who were charged different fees for the same service.

According to Reuters, Tinder agreed to better inform users about its pricing, specifically the personalized discounts it offered. Users who showed little interest in purchasing one of the dating app’s standard premium services were later offered personalized discounts to get them to pay for Tinder. It was also disclosed that the app was using automation to identify these users and to personalize the prices for them.

In fact, a study in Sweden in 2022 showed that Tinder was offering 36 different “personalized” price levels, ranging from about $3 U.S. to as much as $36 per month for the same premium service, which prompted the investigation.

Dating app Bumble agreed to pay the state of New Jersey $315,000 in a settlement after the state’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin argued that the dating company violated state consumer protection and internet dating safety laws. The lawsuit alleged that Bumble allowed convicted sex offenders and other criminals on the app without warning other users.

Starting in 2020, the Division of Consumer Affairs launched an investigation into Bumble and Badoo dating platforms amid concerns of sexual assault occurring on the dating apps, and found that the company either “inaccurately represented their criminal background screening policies or failed to disclose them all,” according to NJBiz.com. They concluded that this violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and the Internet Dating Safety Act.

Bumble Inc. owns both Bumble and Badoo dating apps.

A federal lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco court against Match Group, alleging that the dating app company creates apps that hook users with promises of love, and then push people to pay money to keep swiping.

According to NPR, the lawsuit was brought by six plaintiffs in New York, California, and Florida, alleging that Match Group “gamifies” its apps to “transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards that Match makes elusive on purpose.”

Match Group owns popular apps Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid and The League, among others.

The lawsuit goes on to claim that Match Group’s apps are designed to turn users into addicts who keep swiping; and keep purchasing subscriptions and paid features to be able to keep searching for matches. The plaintiffs also claim that the company has violated state and federal consumer protection laws and engaged in false advertising.

Shares of Match Group rose as much as 12 percent after The Wall Street Journal reported that Elliott Management had invested almost $1 billion in the company.

According to the report, Elliott has a long history of success in tech investments, including in Salesforce and Pinterest. The Match Group investment showed signs of promise to investors who have recently shied away from dating app companies in the wake of decreasing revenues and management turnover. As a result, share prices for Match rose as high as 12 percent and ended the day up 3 percent.

According to CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, Elliott plans to engage with Match Group’s management, but it is unclear as to how involved they will be, and if that would include nominating its directors. Match Group recently appointed a new CEO for Tinder, so Tinder’s previous acting CEO Bernard Kim can focus his attention on Match Group’s entire suite of apps, which include Hinge, OkCupid, Match and BLK.

Image: Tinder

Match Group has promoted Faye Iosotaluno to head up Tinder as its new CEO, replacing Match Group CEO Bernard Kim.

According to Tech Crunch, Iosotaluno has been at Match Group since 2017, and was promoted from Tinder’s chief strategy officer to the company’s chief operating officer in 2022, when former CEO Renate Nyborg left. Kim has been acting CEO of Tinder until a replacement for Nyborg was made.

“Faye’s understanding of the dating category is unparalleled and coupled together with her remarkable leadership capabilities, I know Tinder will continue to lead the category,” said Kim in a statement.