Matching

eHarmony has gotten into legal trouble again. Lynda Kelly and Miranda Soegi of California have initiated a federal class action lawsuit which claims that eHarmony does not have a scientifically proven system for matching members. Lynda and Miranda believe eHarmony have been misrepresenting the services they provide. They feel they did not receive the service they had paid for.

eHarmony have kept their matching algorithm a closely guarded secret while other sites like Chemistry (see Story) may slowly begin allowing us a peek inside. eHarmony has patents on their matching system so their multi-million dollar investment should be protected if they ever wanted to release more information about it ( U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,568 and 7,454,357). Check out the comments here for more of a discussion on eHarmony's matching system, including some comments from matching experts like Helen Fisher.

I don't think this lawsuit will get to far. eHarmony has been sued before so I am sure their Terms and Conditions have been made air tight by their legal experts. With dating sites that have a scientific matching system, I think what members get confused and angry about is, how loosely the matching algorithm gets applied. I have a feeling that the longer you are on the dating service, some of these sites (to enable to send you more matches) may lower the requirements for a match. Another thing members have to realize is the matches you do receive on these type of dating sites are from both free and paying members. Usually paying members can reply to you, free members cannot.

Misrepresentation is a problem on the internet in general. How many websites are you on in a day that claim to be the biggest or most popular? You will also find a lot of sites that claim to be free, while in fact they are not.

For more information on the story here is a copy of the legal complaint in pdf format.

Pasadena Weekly recently received a tour of the Pasadena-based dating website, eHarmony, and in particular eHarmony Labs were they develop the matching algorithm used by the dating site. eHarmony Labs is the research arm of the dating site. Here they:

are committed to investigating and understanding what makes relationships successful through rigorous scientific methodology.

Their mission is to conduct and support research on relationship processes using academic researchers and by gathering their findings through an established scientific process. Since eHarmony Labs has come into existence a number of studies from eHarmony's research has been submitted for peer review and has been published in such prestigious publications as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see APA Online).

As online dating has become more mainstream, dating sites have been under increased pressure to divulge how their match systems work. eHarmony has taken a bold step with eHarmony Labs. From here you can see what the Lab is currently up to, who works there and, what the current relationship studies are about. You can also take part in several online studies and even take part in research in person (if you are eligible). Some of these studies even allow you to make a bit of money. While they only tell you in broad strokes how the eHarmony matching system works (by matching personality traits, values, attitudes and interests), from eHarmony Labs you can tell the company is serious about figuring out what makes a successful relationship and by applying this research to matching singles together.

So, take the tour with Pasadena Weekly and find out more on how some of these relationship studies take place and about the researchers behind them. For more information about eHarmony, read our review.

Instead of launching Chemistry in the United Kingdom (which is available only in the US and Canada) Match.com has decided to include a personality test called Match Insights as part of the UK Match.com dating site. After reviewing the 2 tests I found them almost exactly the same (at least with the way I answered the questions). For existing Match.com members you can find the personality test in the My Profile section. According to the press release about this news:

... the self analysis is available free to all match.com online dating members in the UK. This will be followed by a premium service available early next year which will deliver every ’match insights’ user their best matches each day based on their personality type.

It looks like this will become an additional paid service that will most likely continue to be a part of Match.com instead of becoming a whole new dating site.

Scientific Match is a dating site that bases its matches on members DNA and their immune systems. The owner Eric Holzle was interviewed for a Times article. In it he talks about how Scientfic Match works, some background information about himself and his company plus, the cost of the service. The author of the article was a bit suspect of the whole thing.

Besides all of the obvious weirdness, it seemed odd that women on the pill aren’t allowed to join because, as Holzle explains, they’ve chemically altered their bodies to avoid the need to breed.

With quotes like the one above, Eric doesn't always come out very good. The author also had Scientific Match checked out by his Expert.

Somewhat bewildered, I bounced the concept off David Altshuler, a geneticist at Harvard University. I explained to him that there was a service that matches you with a partner based on genetics and immunity. He was intrigued, but after perusing Holzle’s site, he said, without apologies, “This is all such hooey.”

Of course I have no idea if the authors experts are any better or worse than Scientific Matches Experts and their quoted studies. If the price was lower it would be interesting to see the results of DNA matching but, I don't see many people paying almost $1000 to find out.

See the full article at The Times.

Related Story: DNA Love Matching

An article on NewMediaAge mentions the fact that Match.com has rolled out personality testing (think eHarmony). It is a 30 minute test with 56 questions of different types. The article says 88% of members are completing the test. That is a high percentage but, when I logged on to both uk.Match.com and Match.com I couldn't find the personality test anywhere. Maybe it is only for new member signups, I'll have to try that next. I have a feeling this feature is not for North America though, since Match.com's sister site Chemistry is all about the personality test. Why would they want to compete directly with each other.

The short article quotes Match.com International MD Jason Stockwood. He says that it is the biggest innovation in five years. With eHarmony having launched a UK dating site this year, maybe Match is feeling the pinch and wants to fight back. I just wonder why they don't launch a international version of Chemistry. I think they may have added the personality test into Match.com instead of creating an international version of Chemistry due to all of Match.com worldwide partner programs.

For more information on this dating site, read some of our Match.com Reviews and UK Match.com Reviews.

Since 2000 eHarmony has produced more than 1 Billion automated matches for its members. With eHarmony's detailed profiles and strict criteria for matching singles, combined with their large membership base, this is a huge success for them.

To see how this fact was established using eHarmony's match ID, visit the Unofficial eHarmony Blog. For more information about this popular online dating service read our eHarmony Review.