Dating Services

Tinder announced this week that it has added background checks to its features, thanks to its ongoing partnership with security company Garbo.

Starting now in the U.S., Garbo’s new online background check platform will be available to the general public and launched to Tinder members via the app’s Safety Center. The new service allows easy access to public information about a potential match’s history of violent or harmful behavior, including arrests, convictions, and sex offender registry records.  

According to the company's press release,  Tinder users can tap on a blue safety shield from anywhere in the app to be taken to the Safety Center. From there, they can tap on the Garbo article to be redirected to Garbo’s website where they can provide information about their match – typically only a first name and phone number. If Garbo needs more information, they’ll ask, which may include age.

Bumble’s stock jumped 20 percent after an earnings report from the company showed an increase in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021, finishing far ahead of analyst expectations.

According to Yahoo!, Bumble’s overall revenue for Q4 in 2021 increased 25.7 percent to $208.2 million compared to $165.60 million for the same quarter the year before, including the negative impact from foreign currency movements year over year. Total paying users also increased 10.6 percent to 3 million, compared to 2.7 million at the end of 2020. Total average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) was $22.83 in Q4 2021, compared to $20.02 in Q4 2020.

While Badoo’s app revenue decreased 3.5 percent to $57.7 million compared with $59.8 million from 2020, Bumble app revenue was on the upswing with a 42.2 percent increase in revenue to $150.5 million in the fourth quarter last year, compared to $105.8 million the year before, not only offsetting but far surpassing the losses.

Dating platform Bumble announced that it will be stopping operations in Russia and Belarus because of the invasion of Ukraine. The company has removed its apps from the Apple Store and Google Play in both countries.

In addition to its signature apps, Bumble has removed its new and popular French app Fruitz, as well as Badoo which is popular across Europe, from app stores in Russia and Belarus, according to The Washington Post.

According to ABC local news in Texas, Bumble said it stands to lose about $20 million in revenue from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine due to the halting of operations. The Washington Post estimates this is less than .1 percent of the Bumble app’s revenue, and 2.8 percent of its revenue across all of its apps.

Dating app Romeo started a new forum for its users to be able to offer support to Ukrainian refugees, and thousands of members were quick to respond.

The gay dating app is based in Germany and has been popular for years, mainly in Eastern Europe. One of its high-profile features is “groups” or chat forums where users can congregate and discuss topics of interest. This past week, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the app decided to harness the traffic in these forums to call on users for help. Developers launched a group called “Shelter for Ukraine” so that users could offer assistance those fleeing the war.

The app was quickly overwhelmed with users wanting to help, with 8,000 members joining the chat after being active for only four days.

Nevermet, a new dating app that operates exclusively in the metaverse, aims to help people cultivate virtual relationships instead of encouraging them to meet IRL.

Nevermet was designed specifically for VR users who are looking for a virtual dating experience. Users can create a profile with traditional dating app preferences like age and gender filters, but the big difference is no physical address is necessary because the app isn’t location-based. Instead, users add a virtual location like Rec Room, Horizon Worlds, or VRChat where they can be found. 

When the profile is complete, users can swipe through potential matches, but instead of real-life photos, they see only a VR avatar of their matches. According to Virtual Reality Times, the app is monitored to ensure people aren’t posting real photos.

Dating app Tinder said that it would be ending the controversial aged-based pricing structure for its premium service Tinder Plus by the end of the second quarter.

The news follows a recent UK study that found users were paying wildly different prices to access Tinder’s premium service, typically based on age, which raised questions about discriminatory pricing.

According to Buzzfeed, the Mozilla Foundation and Consumers International took up where the UK consumer watchdog Which? and Australian consumer advocacy organization Choice left off when they first pointed out the issue of price discrepancies on the app. The researchers at Mozilla and CI didn’t find statistically different prices based on race, gender or sexual orientation, but did find it among different age groups.