Types (Niche)

The bad news just keeps coming for Ashley Madison.

The adultery dating site was hacked last month by a group calling itself The Impact Team. At the time of the security breach, The Impact Team threatened to release customer records online if Ashley Madison was not shut down.

Avid Life Media (ALM), which runs Ashley Madison and other dating sites, did not back down and the hackers made good on their threat. More than 30 million email addresses and credit card numbers have been exposed, including those of notable figures in entertainment and politics.

In the wake of the leak, things have only gotten worse for Ashley Madison. There are reports of suicides that may be tied to the hacking scandal. Avid Life Media is offering a $500,000 reward to anyone with info that leads to the arrest of the hackers. The company is also facing a $760 million class action lawsuit over the data hack.

Eliot Shore, a widower from Ottawa, is the plaintiff in the suit filed this week in Ontario against Avid Life Media and Avid Life Dating, a subsidiary that runs Ashley Madison. The legal action alleges that the privacy of thousands of Canadians was breached when the hackers infiltrated Ashley Madison.

"Numerous former users of AshleyMadison.com have approached the law firms to inquire about their privacy rights under Canadian law," the law firms Charney Lawyers and Sutts, Strosberg LLP said in a statement. "They are outraged that AshleyMadison.com failed to protect its users' information. In many cases, the users paid an additional fee for the website to remove all of their user data, only to discover that the information was left intact and exposed."

Lawyer Ted Charney told VICE News that around 100 people have expressed interest in joining the class action so far, noting that anyone who registers will remain anonymous.

It will be up to a court to decide whether Ashley Madison did enough to protect its customers. David Fraser, a Halifax-based internet, technology, and privacy lawyer, thinks the class action faces “a bit of a challenge.” He says the Ashley Madison terms of service are "decidedly consumer unfriendly" and "completely covered their butt."

There may even be a question over whether this can be a class action at all. Ashley Madison's terms preclude customers from filing such suits, but consumer protection legislation in Ontario protects the right to do so.

Either way, it won't be the end of the issue for Ashley Madison. The Associated Press reported that another lawsuit seeking class action status was filed in the US days after the hack became public.

A recent article in Vanity Fair made the argument that apps like Tinder have ruined dating. Reporter Nancy Jo Sales interviewed single twenty-somethings to get their impressions of online dating, and it wasn’t pretty. They admit that “Tinder sucks” and yet they still keep swiping for lack of a better way to date.

Part of the problem, she argues, is that people have a hook-up mentality with dating apps, and men especially. They meet girls to have sex under the guise of pretending to date them, and women have been burned more than once – making them skeptical that any guy wants a relationship.

This argument isn’t a new one. But the reporter feels that dating apps are the real problem – the technology, not the people using them. Let me be more precise: dating apps make it easier than ever to meet new people, providing a way for those who are averse to commitment to do a date-and-dump.

The problem I see with this argument is that it assumes technology is the problem. If we ditched dating apps and online dating in general and went back to an “easier time” – say 1995 – when dating was supposedly alive and well, and all single people were looking for long-term romance. But this just wasn’t the case. In fact, people would hook up and avoid commitment with relative ease – they just did it in person at bars and clubs, rather than through a dating app. Maybe their choices were limited, but the behavior wasn’t much better.

Remember The Rules – dating advice lexicon of that decade? It centered around dealing with men who had commitment issues, basically teaching women how to use their sexuality and femininity to get what they wanted – a relationship.

We’ve come a lot further in our relationship progress in my opinion, partly in thanks to online dating. Dating apps have helped make online dating mainstream. They have allowed shy types to interact more easily with new people. And yes – while some people do use them for hooking up, many others are looking for real love.

Dating takes time. It takes meeting a lot of people before a connection happens. That is the nature of dating – and with a dating app, the haystack is considerably bigger when you are just trying to find that one needle. So it will take you that much longer.

Instead of getting discouraged and giving up dating apps and online dating altogether, it’s time for a different approach. Let’s embrace online dating. Be truthful about what you want so you don’t waste someone else’s time. And most importantly, be respectful to your dates and you’ll find yourself meeting people who will respect you in return.

Cheaters are having a bad week.

In case you're not up to speed on the latest scandal to rock the online dating world, here's the gist: a group of hackers calling themselves The Impact Team attacked Ashley Madison and gained access to the site's database of 37 million members. The hackers got hold of financial records, addresses, and other highly sensitive personal information, and have threated to publish it online unless Ashley Madison shuts down.

Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, says it has secured its sites and is working with law enforcement agencies to find the parties responsible. Despite their efforts, files containing emails and passwords for some Ashley Madison users have started to spread online.

Some have called this the beginning of the end for Ashley Madison. It's devastating for any website to be hacked, but infinitely more so when it's designed for a philandering clientele whose top priority is privacy. Ashley Madison has failed to uphold one of its most important – perhaps the most important – promises.

And it gets worse. Avid Life Media announced earlier this year that it hopes to raise $200 million in an initial public offering in London in 2015. The brand's value is based almost completely on the service's ability to protect its members' privacy. Without that, is the Ashley Madison worth anything in the first place?

“If a password manager such as LastPass was hacked,” writes Christina Warren for Mashable, “the service would be dead in the water. After all, the whole point of a password management service is to secure and protect your passwords.”

The same principle applies here. Ashley Madison's adulterous target audience is likely to be wary of a site with a history of being hacked. New customers will think twice before joining. Current customers will jump ship. And the IPO? If the hack doesn't squash it completely, it will at least significantly reduce the value of the company.

A renaissance isn't impossible. Other companies have endured disasters, rebranded, and risen from the ashes. It's possible that Ashley Madison could update its security practices, change its name, and come back to reclaim its place in the online dating market.

But should it? Will anyone buy into the narrative that Ashley Madison has seen the error of its ways and reformed? Will cheaters, who require privacy more than anything else, take a chance on a service with such a shoddy track record? The damage may already be irreversible.

Late last year, a lawsuit was discreetly filed by Spark’s popular niche dating website JDate against dating app JSwipe. According to Forbes who broke the story, JDate claimed that JSwipe was infringing on the company’s trademark “J” by using it in the name of their app.

JDate isn’t the only Jewish online dating website that caters to the Jewish community and uses the letter “J” in its offerings. There is also JCrush, JWed, JPeopleMeet, Jewish Café, and Jewcier to name a few. In fact, it seems difficult to name a niche dating app catering to the Jewish community without using the letter J. But there is more to the story, which potentially puts all online dating sites and apps in danger of patent infringement.

In the lawsuit, JDate also claims it owns the patent on software that “confidentially determines matches and notifies users of mutual matches in feelings and interests.” JSwipe is similar in its process to Tinder, which also notifies users when matches swipe right on their picture. This is in violation of JDate’s patent.

Why then has JDate not sued other websites or dating apps, since this is such a broad definition of matching that almost every dating app and website uses? Notifying users of potential matches is the bread and butter of online dating. Why not go after an app like Tinder?

The key might lie in the competition JSwipe presents, especially if it is gaining market share in the niche online dating space. According to the Forbes writer who broke the story, JSwipe’s founder David Yarus confidentially confessed the lawsuit to him, though he is forbidden from discussing details. Instead of accepting JDate’s acquisition offer (which he considered too low), he decided to fight the lawsuit rather than sell. (For all you fans of Silicon Valley on HBO, this sounds vaguely similar to Pied Piper’s plight as an up-and-comer in the tech world.)

But JDate might have a case against JSwipe. According to Forbe’s research into intellectual property law, the language used in JDate’s patent was registered in 1999, and it is broad – broad enough (as mentioned earlier) to cover most dating websites and apps on the market today – so they could essentially claim IP infringement over any other company in the space. According to analysts, this might be a move by JDate to acquire JSwipe for a steal. Chances are if they tried to sue Match or Tinder, those companies' lawyers would be able to fight and win. JSwipe is too small a player.

Using the letter “J” in a dating app or website is apparently less clear-cut in legal terms. JDate would have to find evidence that users confuse Jswipe with JDate, which means asking users to testify that they thought Jswipe was part of JDate, or somehow affiliated, which would be trickier and more time-consuming.

JSwipe is fighting back. They have set up a crowdfunding website and asked for Jewish lawyers to take them on pro bono. 

For more on the Spark Networks dating site, you can read our review of JDate.

Musicians are having to find new and more organic ways to promote their new albums, since people are discovering content in different ways outside of traditional radio. To capture new – and especially younger – fans, artists who are serious about promotion are now looking to dating apps, and finding some success.

Millennials are the largest group of consumers of music, and they also tend to be on dating apps like Tinder and Grindr. So it only makes sense that music and dating apps would eventually come together.

Some recent examples: Madonna's latest album was advertised on Grindr, a dating app for gay men, while Jason Derulo debuted a music video on Tinder. PlentyofFish was one of the first dating sites to link itself to an artist, by making an appearance in Derulo’s 2010 video for his song “Ridin Solo.” POF also worked with Lady Gaga during a U.S. tour, offering fans a chance to win tickets and backstage passes.

Other popular dating sites are linking to musicians, too - Mariah Carey premiered her music video for the single, "Infinity" via her new profile on Match.com, and DJ-producer Afrojack answered questions about love and relationships for eight hours on Match’s Twitter account to promote his new single.

The latest musician to take advantage of the wide reach of dating apps is Zedd, the Grammy-winning DJ-producer. He worked with Tinder to promote his album, "True Colors," released last month, by setting up his profile on the dating app. While Tinder users searched for dates, they would come across Zedd's promotional profile. They could swipe left or right, as with any other potential match. But instead of messaging him or setting up a date, if they swiped right, they could purchase his new album at a discounted price of $3.99 (compared to $7.99 on iTunes).

According to a recent story from Associated Press, “True Colors” debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart its first week with 39,000 copies sold. While no specifics were given about how many sales were the direct result of Tinder users swiping right on Zedd’s profile, chances are the app had something to do with the album’s popular debut.

According to Tinder, eighty-five percent of its users are between the ages 18-34, and the average user spends about 11 minutes on the app each day — one of the main reasons artists are looking to work with Tinder in particular. It makes sense. Since users’ engagement with dating apps is pretty high, artists have their attention, at least for a few seconds, which is long enough to swipe right and learn more.

There have been a lot of breakthroughs recently for the LGBTQ community. The Supreme Court ruled on the legality of gay marriage across America, overriding state laws that made it illegal. Caitlyn Jenner disclosed her transition from male to female in an interview with Diane Sawyer, and later showed off her new body in Vanity Fair to a public that embraced her. Celebrities like Ruby Rose and Miley Cyrus have recently stated that they identify as “gender-fluid,” or as both male and female, bringing gender identity conversations into the spotlight.

It only makes sense that in this moment of time where people feel more free than ever to live their truth – there is also a dating app that helps you find that special someone, no matter how you identify. At least, that is what OneGoodCrush aims to do.

Launched this week, OneGoodCrush aims to help people in the LGBTQ community find long-term relationships. But they aren’t limiting their potential user base. Founder Frank Mastronuzzi wants everyone to feel they can find someone special using the app, including those who identify as heterosexual, or who do not define themselves as male or female.

"We wanted to be inclusive of everyone -- even heterosexual people can use our app," he told USA Today. "Letters on LGBTQ keep adding over time, but wherever you fall on this spectrum, you have a place on this app."

OneGoodCrush connects users through their Facebook and Instagram accounts to pull photos and profile information. The app works like Tinder and other dating apps, where each user is presented with photos and profiles, allowing them to swipe left and right to reject or accept a match. But while other dating apps like Tinder and Grindr offer same-sex dating options, they are limited when it comes to allowing users to communicate their own gender identity. The big difference between OneGoodCrush and other dating apps is that its members can claim their own gender identity -- man, woman, transgender man, transgender woman, or queer -- and then choose the gender(s) they are seeking.

According to the company’s records, the app has so far attracted about 100,000 users since its soft launch three months ago. Of the users that have signed onto the app, 57% identify as gay, 37% identify as lesbian, 4% have identify as transgender, 1% identify as queer, and less than 1% identify as straight.

Having the ability to identify as a transgender seems obvious in online dating, but it hasn’t been the case. As Trish McDermott, Strategic Advisor for OneGoodCrush states: "It seems online dating is one of the last bastions separating people, and that is kind of mind blowing. I think the industry has a responsibility to invite everyone."