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Dating conglomerate Match Group was ordered to pay $2 million USD to settle a civil lawsuit filed by Santa Cruz County involving the company’s practices when it comes to automatic renewals. Match Group app users complained of a confusing and difficult process when they wanted to terminate their accounts and were often unaware when the company automatically renewed their membership without notifying or asking them to do so.

According to The San Diego Union Tribune, the settlement was signed by a Santa Cruz Superior Court Judge in early July, and the company was ordered to pay civil penalties and victim restitution that amounted to $2 million. Match Group has also been ordered to change its renewal and termination processes to make them more transparent to customers, including getting consent from users via a checkbox before automatically renewing their subscriptions, and emailing customers confirmations of transactions.

“Consumers should be protected from practices that deceptively and unfairly force them to pay for something they don’t want,” L.A. District Attorney Gascón told Canyon News. “We want companies to thrive, but they should be mindful to not abuse technology tools to violate consumer protections.”

TikTok and Twitter users are posting profiles of closeted Olympic athletes who are discreetly using Grindr while they compete in Tokyo for the 2021 Olympics, raising alarm among LGBTQ+ communities.

Some of the athletes who have been highlighted have not come out as gay, while at least one comes from a country where same-sex sexual relations are illegal, putting them in danger. According to a report from Insider, there are other risks as well because the Olympics are taking place in Tokyo, and Amnesty International has said it’s a culture that “systemically discriminates against gay people.”

The social media users are logging on to the Grindr app and using its “explore” feature to find profiles of athletes in the Olympic Village. When they find an athlete, they take screenshots and video, zooming in on their photos and posting them without the athletes’ consent or knowledge. So far, ten profiles have been posted to Twitter and four to TikTok, with one post gaining at least 140,000 views according to Insider.

Tinder has noticed a popular trend emerging in the past week – users from around the world are changing their location to match with athletes staying in Olympic Village.

Tinder’s popular Passport feature was made available to all users at no cost for limited times during pandemic lockdowns, and many members took advantage. Passport allows users to switch locations to match with anyone in the world, regardless of where they currently live. And recently, Tinder users began changing their location to match with athletes participating in the Olympics.

There’s no current tally of the number of Tinder users setting their romantic sights on 2021 Olympic athletes, but referencing 2018 numbers, Tinder confirmed to Newsweek that there was an increase of 1,850 percent of users accessing Passport to match with athletes in the Olympic Village. 

Bumble is set to debut Bumble Brew in New York City, its first brick and mortar branded cafe for people to meet or network while they eat, drink coffee, or share a bottle of wine.

The dating company had plans to debut its Brew location last year, but it got pushed back due to the pandemic. With Covid numbers dropping as vaccination numbers increase, and with the success of its IPO earlier this year, Bumble is rolling out the red carpet for the café’s debut and adding more items to the menu.

Bumble Brew is a partnership between Pasqual Jones from Delicious Hospitality Group and the dating platform, according to Bloomberg. The restaurant will be located next to Pasqual Jones on Kenmare Street in downtown Manhattan, and has been tweaked since its initial concept from “date-friendly,” shareable foods to a more robust menu, according to the partners.

Dating app Thursday has secured $3.5 million in seed money investment after launching in New York and London in May, according to Tech Crunch.

The dating app’s name comes from the fact that it’s only live once a week – on Thursdays, so users of the app will have to be sure to log on then if they don’t want to wait another week to connect with potential matches. Thursday goes live at 1:00am and closes at midnight each week, when all conversations and matches vanish. So, if you really want to continue with a match you made on the app, you have to commit and make plans quickly. 

The idea seems to be taking off, at least for now. A month and a half after its launch, the company said in a statement that it had 52,000 downloads, 110,000 likes were sent, and also reported 7,500 matches in a single day. The company also received more seed money than it had planned to raise.

Dating app Tinder has partnered with VisitHealth to offer free mental health services to its users in India.

Through July, all existing and new Tinder members in India will have free access to emotional wellness content through the dating app, such as guided meditations and fitness videos among other health initiatives, according to The Times of India.

In addition, every Tinder member will have access to two free sessions with a licensed therapist across all major Indian languages. Participating members can also have access to continued support at discounted rates after those first two sessions.

The pandemic has been difficult mentally and emotionally for people around the world, and young people looking for connection have been especially vulnerable. More than half of India’s Tinder members are 18 to 25-year-olds, and as The Times of India points out, they have become more open in sharing their lives with others over the app in order to feel more connected - including who they are, how they look, and how they feel. Since the start of the pandemic, Tinder noted that mentions of the word “anxious” grew by 20 percent, and the word “normalize” was used 11 times more frequently in bios from March 2020 until now.