alt.hn

3/30/2026 at 3:32:37 PM

FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

 https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/03/ftc-takes-action-against-match-okcupid-deceiving-users-sharing-personal-data-third-party

by gnabgib

3/30/2026 at 3:59:27 PM

Key quote:

> Even though it did not have any business relationship with OkCupid, the third-party data recipient asked the company to share large datasets of OkCupid user photos and related data with it because OkCupid’s founders were financial investors in the third party. OkCupid provided the third party with access to nearly three million OkCupid user photos as well as location and other information without placing any formal or contractual restrictions on how the information could be used, the FTC alleged.

I wonder what is this third party that the complaint does not list by name?

by tetromino_

3/30/2026 at 4:55:12 PM

The FTC article links to the federal complaint[0] which names the third-party data recipient as Clarifai, Inc.

"In September 2014, the CEO of Clarifai, Inc. e-mailed one of OkCupid’s founders requesting that Humor Rainbow give Clarifai, Inc. (i.e., the Data Recipient) access to large datasets of OkCupid photos."

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-MatchCo...

by hector_vasquez

3/30/2026 at 5:32:53 PM

So, your dating photos were going to a government contractor involved with AI killer drone technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarifai#Military_work

by realreality

3/30/2026 at 6:58:46 PM

> Their technology was used by Unilever, Ubisoft, BuzzFeed

And apparently also your deodorant, Assassin's Creed, and tabloid rags as well. That's what I call variety.

by ronsor

3/31/2026 at 1:46:32 AM

Killing singles near you!

by hsbauauvhabzb

3/31/2026 at 7:42:53 AM

Killing significant others to broaden the dating pool! Delivering value to existing users!

by pfannkuchen

3/31/2026 at 7:57:26 PM

This is clearly the follow up to the dril tweet - you do not, in fact, have to hand it to them for figuring out how to monetize the enemy combatant guidelines

by selimthegrim

3/31/2026 at 8:13:03 AM

That’s must the reason why some people can’t get a partner /s

by znpy

3/30/2026 at 8:16:26 PM

> The platform includes the ability to moderate content, perform visual search, visual similarity, and organize media collections. It has pre-built recognition models that can identify a specific set of concepts like food or travel, NSFW, and its general model which can identify a range of concepts including objects, ideas, and emotion.[18] It also has the ability to create custom models which can identify other arbitrary objects such as cars or breeds of dogs.[19] The 2018 Model 1.5 with machine-labeled datasets claims to recognize up to 11,000 concepts from object detection, as well as things like mood or theme.

sooo, why are they after some dating profile pics if the model was about “identifying and labeling pictures”? You can safely assume their new model will be (already) trained on your pictures to crosscheck you on other platforms or surveillance system, coupled with accurate positioning, you can guess the rest.

by tamimio

3/30/2026 at 4:54:57 PM

I'm wondering if this means 3 million copyright violations that could be litigated in civil court.

by CoastalCoder

3/30/2026 at 11:17:22 PM

Nearly every app that accepts user-generated content includes an agreement that you give them a license to use that content.

It's basically required for those apps to function. No platform would exist very long if users could upload content and then sue the platform for hosting it.

The agreements usually include a clause about allowing them to sub-license it.

So you still retain the copyright to the photos, but you can't sue them for using it.

by Aurornis

3/31/2026 at 2:15:30 AM

In this case there was no sublicensing….

by lazide

3/30/2026 at 5:35:36 PM

> I'm wondering if this means 3 million copyright violations that could be litigated in civil court.

Outstanding observation! Class action suit in the making. Only lawyers get rich, but still could hurt the offenders financially.

by alsetmusic

3/30/2026 at 7:15:48 PM

Look, I like the occasional $2 checks in the mail. For now, I can buy a candy bar with it.

by RiverCrochet

3/30/2026 at 7:20:12 PM

Here in Canada, even a chocolate bar has now gone up to $3 at Walmart

by busymom0

3/31/2026 at 1:47:33 AM

Two for the price of three data breaches!

by hsbauauvhabzb

3/30/2026 at 4:51:24 PM

Just guessing, but the third party company did not break a law or go against their privacy policy.

Reuters says it is "Clarifai" if you wanted to know.

https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...

by ImJamal

3/30/2026 at 5:48:19 PM

no. but it seems possible, or even likely, that they used the pictures to train targeting for military drones (think Project Insight from Captain America:Winter Soldier).

I'm not sure privacy violations are the biggest concern here.

by rose-knuckle17

3/30/2026 at 7:06:18 PM

Maybe privacy concerns aren't your biggest concerns, but they are for the FTC for a case like this.

by ImJamal

3/30/2026 at 7:38:31 PM

> seems possible, or even likely, that they used the pictures to train targeting for military drones

Clarifai's usecase is around unstructured image data search which is fairly useful in cleansing and less so in targeting.

More fundamentally, almost the entire tech industry touched Project Maven - it was massive. And that was just 1 of multiple initiatives led by the DoD.

And most other great and regional powers like China, Russia, Japan, France, India, South Korea, Turkiye, etc have all been working on similar projects for a decade.

It doesn't matter what country you live in - no nation will leave capabilities on the table. Heck, a highschooler with knowledge of OpenCV and the Google Earth API can build targeting capabilities similar to what superpowers had a decade ago.

It's 2026 - the Ukraine War started in 2014; the Syrian, Libyan, and Yemeni Civil Wars in 2011; the Congo War reignited in 2015; the Afghan War continued until 2022; the Myanmar Civil War reignited in 2021; etc - there has now been over a decade of constant development of dual use technologies in both conflicts and civilian applications.

Technology has always had a military component - heck, much of the "civilian" technologies in the 1990s-2000s were refined and tested thanks to Gulf War 1 and the Yugoslav Wars.

Or, framed in another manner - the capabilities disclosed as part of the Snowden Leaks in 2013 were already in production 20 years ago. It is 2026.

There is a sense of starry-eyed idealism amongst a subset of techies who didn't seem to realize that technology has always been dual use.

by alephnerd

3/30/2026 at 4:56:00 PM

All of these sites do shady shit. I'm so glad I'm no longer single.

I signed up for eHarmony with a unique email address dedicated to that site. After wasting 6 months, I chose to delete my account.

Lo and behold, soon spam started to show up on this account, as if the floodgates had been opened. It was a unique account that I had not used anywhere else just for this specific reason, and my hunch was justified.

by mlmonkey

3/30/2026 at 7:12:50 PM

After wasting 6 months, I chose to delete my account.

Lo and behold, soon spam started to show up on this account, as if the floodgates had been opened.

Facebook is also guilty of this.

I set up a Facebook account for a relative around 2006. The e-mail address is name_facebook@ a domain that I control.

Every six months or so, Facebook will send out almost daily e-mails for a month saying "Person x commented on your post!" or some variant. You know how I know this relative of mine didn't make a new post?

He's been dead since 2011.

by reaperducer

3/31/2026 at 12:24:55 AM

That's called a compromised account, not Facebook sharing the email with a third party data broker.

by joatmon-snoo

3/31/2026 at 2:52:14 AM

To be honest, what you did here is called speculation. Claims require evidence, and you provided none. Your confident tone is unjustified imo.

by halayli

3/31/2026 at 2:05:33 AM

Since all the alleged comments are allegedly from people he knew, and not new strangers, I find it hard to believe that someone has been impersonating him on Facebook for the last 15 years.

Especially people who were at his funeral.

by reaperducer

3/31/2026 at 6:19:51 AM

How do you know they are not commenting on old content? FB could be pushing old content like 'remember X from 18 years ago' and then someone comments about remembering their friend under an old photo.

by rapidaneurism

3/30/2026 at 7:37:17 PM

I do this for every site I sign up for. I have a 'catch all' email address, so I can put whateverIwant@mydomain.com and the emails will get to my inbox. So now I know who is selling or leaking my email address. So far it's been very few, but I also don't sign up for new sites very often.

by leptons

3/30/2026 at 6:26:22 PM

They were good 15 years ago. As with all things, it went to shit when Match.com started consolidating everything and the bean counters realized that a quality product was not as profitable.

Surprised it took this long to get litigation. So many people complaining about how crap dating sites are, but no one thought to realize the site itself was the problem and fell into the whole "looksmaxxing" grift. Some people really will do anything except admit that rich people are corrupt.

by johnnyanmac

3/30/2026 at 10:10:42 PM

Dating sites are an extremely hard business to be in.

On a traditional (social) network, whether that'd be Facebook, the railroad or the Bloomberg Terminal, you have the network effect. The more users you get, the more interesting the network becomes, which means yet more users want to join. This is a positive feedback loop.

The entire point of a dating site is to find somebody to leave that site with. Statistically speaking (and at that scale, statistics is the only thing that matters), attractive users[1] are more likely to find a match and leave, while unattractive users are likely to stay (or come back) and keep looking. As time goes on, the fraction of unattractive users will keep increasing. You can fix this with enough growth, but exponential growth can't go on forever due to population size constraints. And once you get into that state, your growth will be constrained further, which just puts you onto a downward slide into hell.

And then there's the question of revenue. It's hard to scalably do deals where the user must pay you when they find a relationship on the site (like the matchmaking services of old used to do), so subscriptions or one-time fees are your only options. Neither of them are great, subscriptions encourage you to keep users on the site (which puts your goal opposite to what the users want), one-time fees work against the network effect and constrain growth.

[1] By "attractiveness", I mean something much wider than just visual / physical attractiveness. An ability to enter and maintain a successful long-term relationship in general.

by miki123211

3/31/2026 at 3:07:11 PM

> The entire point of a dating site is to find somebody to leave that site with.

Many people on dating apps are not looking for exclusive or long-term relationships.

by trogdor

3/31/2026 at 6:23:45 AM

Interesting observation. Perhaps the business model is to push to you people 'good enough' to date but not 'good enough' to leave the site with?

by rapidaneurism

3/30/2026 at 7:50:02 PM

My experience was poor more than 15 years ago so ymmv

by socalgal2

3/30/2026 at 4:07:22 PM

This article has more information - looks like this was from 12 years ago https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...

> The FTC said OkCupid users were never told their information - including nearly 3 million photos, demographic information and location data - would be shared in 2014 with Clarifai, a facial recognition technology company, contrary to OkCupid's privacy policies.

by rm999

3/30/2026 at 5:54:48 PM

Thanks - we've put that link in the toptext as well.

by dang

3/30/2026 at 4:07:13 PM

Throwaway account. I tried these sites a couple of times each in the past (the UK versions at least). I'm married now and fortunately don't have to deal with "the dating scene" and how awful it is/was.

When I signed up for Match, about ten minutes into the process my account suddenly changed to that of another man including different photo, descriptions, orientation etc. I don't know why this happened but it was absolutely mortifying and an outrage Match did this. I dread to think how shit their code has to be to somehow merge accounts or whatever happened. I deleted "my" account immediately.

I imagine that counts as excessive sharing of personal data.

by junkaccount100

3/30/2026 at 5:05:55 PM

I met my current wife on OKC in 2010, before online dating became an utter cesspool.

I've been out of the dating scene for 16 years now, but based on what I see on social media, I think online dating sucks today for three reasons.

1. Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they want to get laid. They're not looking for a relationship, they're looking for a hook-up, and they're not honest about their intentions. It doesn't help that people argue over whether Tinder is a dating app or a hook-up app.

2. I'm not sure how to put this without seeming misogynistic, but some women greatly over-value themselves. Or at the very least, they have out-dated ideas of courtship. Some of them expect to be taken out to $50+/plate restaurants on a first date, while many men think women are just trying to score free meals. It's hard to make relationships kick off when they begin so adversarial.

3. Dating sites/apps have a financial incentive for your relationship to fail. They can give you matches they know are bad since it keeps you as a serial dater and on their app. They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's not really a way around it.

by Sohcahtoa82

3/30/2026 at 7:21:17 PM

> Criticizes pathological behavior of some men openly

> Puts a disclaimer before criticizing pathological behavior of some women

Nothing will improve until we as men stop gatekeeping ourselves from stating facts openly, without apologies. Women can be very shitty, often are, and that has to be said without the need to preface it or soften the blow.

by neonstatic

3/30/2026 at 8:19:58 PM

What exactly will improve if men are more blunt and non-apologetic?

by istjohn

3/30/2026 at 8:46:18 PM

Women are very sensitive to general approval and consensus seeking. Once enough opposition is voiced to certain behaviors, women will be more inclined to not pursue those behaviors, at least in public.

by neonstatic

3/31/2026 at 1:49:38 AM

That’s a really long way of saying ‘I’m an incel’ but you do you!

by hsbauauvhabzb

3/31/2026 at 2:07:45 AM

I don't need to do myself, because unlike your statement, I am neither a 'cel' nor an 'in-cel'. I understand that my statement reads like some redpill stuff, but I find it to be generally true (unlike a lot of other online dating/gender related stuff)

by neonstatic

3/31/2026 at 2:24:03 AM

[flagged]

by hsbauauvhabzb

3/31/2026 at 10:22:08 PM

You admit you haven't been in the dating scene for almost a generation. You then go on to generalize about supposedly significant portions of both sexes, based on your observations of "social media".

by IAmBroom

3/30/2026 at 6:02:08 PM

> They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's not really a way around it.

naive question: why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? i understand that the current business model is much more lucrative...but i feel like with how fed up people are with the inability of modern online dating to provide quality, long-lasting relationships a new platform that optimizes for match quality and longevity would eat all of Match Groups offerings lunches. i guess there just isn't enough money to be made so it's not even worth it?

by stanford_labrat

3/30/2026 at 6:51:06 PM

> why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure?

You've identified the problem but failed to adequately describe a solution.

The matchmakers need to make money, even to just pay for the costs of running the service.

A monthly subscription to use the service creates the perverse incentive to give bad matches. A one-time fee makes unsuccessful users feel cheated out of their money. A "pay us once you get married" option is ripe for abuse.

Even if the service is free and paid for by selling ads, you'd run into the same problem of the subscription model: They'd be incentivized to keep you perpetually single so you see more ads.

by Sohcahtoa82

3/30/2026 at 9:41:07 PM

What I want to see is a dating service where I can pledge some money to some charity. Everybody on the site can check what I've pledged, and I can release it anytime. The service can take their cut, fine.

Now when I meet somebody through the service, and we think it's serious, we can release that money. And we can check whether the other did too!

Sure there will still be profiles with people that don't pledge, because they're just testing the waters, or poor, or scammers. Whatever. Point is I can send a signal that at some point I want to be done with the service, and then pay them for that.

by lolc

3/30/2026 at 11:26:04 PM

How can the service know that the users have really entered into a relationship?

by AntiDyatlov

3/31/2026 at 3:35:14 PM

Why would it need to? Users police themselves :-)

by lolc

3/30/2026 at 10:15:25 PM

There should be a "dating tax."

If you get married, there should be a "what app did you meet on" question on the marriage application. Apps should get $10/month for each relationship they create, for as long as the partners live or until they get divorced.

This would encourage app makers to "get rid" of their users as fast as possible, getting them into successful, long-term relationships, instead of keeping them on the apps for as long as possible to milk subscription revenue.

Considering the fertility crisis that most western countries are facing, this is overwhelmingly likely to be long-term revenue-positive for governments.

by miki123211

3/30/2026 at 6:23:44 PM

The reverse incentive is used by match makers. It works well for people seeking marriage since there is a legal endpoint to be reached that can’t be faked and is meant to be permanent.

by true_religion

3/30/2026 at 6:26:38 PM

What insentives can an app maker provde to turn the structure around?

by Telaneo

3/30/2026 at 7:46:45 PM

I have no idea if they do this, but they should partially or fully sponsor weddings of couples that met on their service in exchange for a small ad at the venue. There's a captive audience of potentially lots of single people watching two people that met on their service get married. It's a great advertising opportunity. I'd have happily put a "This wedding brought to you by OK-Cupid" banner at the bar at my wedding for $500 or $1000 towards the open bar.

by leptons

3/30/2026 at 6:43:57 PM

> why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure?

1. Network effects. An app isn't like a new local business where people will naturally wander in. They may already exist but the market's captured everyone on the skinner box services

2. App stores. The deeper you look into the things needed to advertise as a mobile app, the more obvious it becomes. You need milliions up front just to be featured in your critical launch time. If you don't, you fall into #1 and it's hard to recover from the "it's so empty" early impressions.

3. As you said, any success despite #1 and #2 is destined to fail. ad won't make that money up, so the only viable idea is relying on a premium or subscription model. But paid models in the era of "free" mobile apps is a hard sell unless you can guarantee success. And dating is anything but guaranteed.

That said other models have been tried to correct the issues with the big apps. Limiting matches, reversing the gender dynamics, based around special interests, etc. The only one I think I saw any kind of success from is one tailored towards rich/famous people meeting other rich/famous people (surprise, surprise).

by johnnyanmac

3/30/2026 at 7:26:29 PM

Also note that as of now, Apple developer guidelines warns specifically of creating more dating apps. They consider it spam.

by busymom0

3/30/2026 at 5:18:35 PM

> Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they want to get laid. They're not looking for a relationship, they're looking for a hook-up, and they're not honest about their intentions.

In fairness, this is not at all exclusive to online dating.

by mjr00

3/30/2026 at 6:49:06 PM

In fairness, this is not at all exclusive to men.

My experience with OKCupid was that women must lie to get laid, moreso than men. A man can state "just want sex" on his profile and it is socially neutral. A woman who posts such a thing has social consequences.

by dotancohen

3/30/2026 at 6:29:56 PM

Or starting a job; wanting to advance in the office; become an entrepreneur; wanting to go into politics; wanting to go into the clergy; wanting to become president; wanting to visit islands; wanting run casinos; wanting to run beuaty pagents...

Hrm...

by cyanydeez

3/31/2026 at 10:31:11 AM

you're right no on the problems (symptoms) but didnt' state the cause.

social media i.e especially instagram has caused women / men etc to curate this idea of themselves that doesn't match to reality.

hence every activity / date etc has to worth an insta moment.

whether you meet initially in person or online - the problem remains - pretense.

no one wants to be shit-shovler(working non-glamorous jobs), home-idler anymore or to be seen as bland / boring which 90% of people are.

by dzonga

3/30/2026 at 9:16:23 PM

> Many men (Not all, but many) are ... not looking for a relationship, ... and they're not honest about their intentions.

> Some women ... expect to be taken out to $50+/plate restaurants on a first date, ... women are just trying to score free meals

> It's hard to make relationships kick off when they begin so adversarial.

I think you're letting a judgmental and expectant point of view toward certain women on the apps cloud over a very real problem of why the apps are not very useful for finding relationships. The basis of which is our expectations of how we want others to be and when they are not, they are the problem (justified or not) -- that then morphs into a cascading sequence of issues, if engaged with, on repeat.

That these particular women, who have expectations, at least say so -- up front. Yet comparing that with men are "not honest about their intentions" (expectations).

How is a woman looking for an actual relationship suppose to work with dishonesty? Men looking for an actual relationship can steer clear of that impending disaster.

I can ignore someone who declares their expectations, which I find off-putting. And if they don't declare it but expect a mindreader and they instead get a coffee, well I'm out a coffee and thankfully they showed who they were early and I move on. Their loss, not mine. On the other hand, if my date was stringing me along and lying about what they wanted until I was deceived enough into handing over what that actually was -- that's a far more consequential loss than a $4 cup of coffee. We should want everyone to clearly state what they want and expect, without the judgements, then everyone (with proper intentions) would benefit.

by 1659447091

3/30/2026 at 5:14:56 PM

> 1. Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they want to get laid.

so are many women, unnecessarily gendered observation

you just hear less about guys crashing out over it

by yieldcrv

3/30/2026 at 6:36:36 PM

> Many men (Not all, but many) are there simply because they want to get laid.

Honestly, that's fine. The issue was when the "get laid" app suddenly decided to be the "find serious relationship" app. Makes about as much sense as Roblox thinking about a dating app, but I guess the MBA's told them it brings more monies.

> but some women greatly over-value themselves.

It's overblown, but the high level concept of "women are picky" the inevitable course of nearly all dating aspects. Evolutionary wise, women need to be picky due to their long gestation period, and men aren't as picky because they can copulate with dozens of women over the course of days. Add in a caste system and the pareto principle, and even scenes from millenia ago aren't as different from 2026 Tinder as you'd think.

But of course your last point only polarizes this existing natural phenomenon.

>Dating sites/apps have a financial incentive for your relationship to fail.

This is why we needed to litigate these sites yesterday. But we were too busy fighting amongst ourselves, like serfs warring in the streets while the kings sit in an ivory tower. This is an issue only regulation can fix. The human element shouln't be sold off to capitalism, especially in this time where people are supposedly concerned about falling birth rates.

by johnnyanmac

3/30/2026 at 5:14:30 PM

> misogynistic

the definition requires "contempt", but it has been diluted to mean any statement that merely points out of corrosive behavior

additionally, many of the statements are actually class based and not inherently gendered, for example, we would call out a man trying to date for free meals too, but since its seen in contexts about women, its stated in reference to that gender, masquerading as contempt and misogyny, but not highlighting what is in the observer's heart and mind whatsoever.

by yieldcrv

3/30/2026 at 5:26:45 PM

Countries are starting to criminalize ‘misogyny’ which includes interrupting women during meetings. I think Brazil is in the process of enacting such laws. These are usually being bootstrapped on civil right and hate speech laws.

by cjbgkagh

3/30/2026 at 10:56:34 PM

The misogyny law was enacted only a few days ago. It criminalizes "disinformation about women, even if true". You read that right.

by matheusmoreira

3/30/2026 at 5:21:20 PM

[flagged]

by matheusmoreira

3/30/2026 at 5:23:17 PM

When you say “$50+/plate” are you saying the dinner itself or each dish? Either way, (in the US) that is not considered a particularly expensive meal for an adult taking someone on a date. In 2026 you should expect $100-$200 bill with drinks basically anywhere. Going out to dinner is not cheap. $100 is actually a great deal unless we’re talking chain restaurants.

If you don’t want to spend that every first date, then I would suggest not making dinner the first date. Do something more casual first time around. Bar, coffee/walk, whatever.

by Forgeties79

3/30/2026 at 6:01:19 PM

My reading of the comment wasn't that the problem is that people expect dinner to be $50+/plate, it's that people expect dates to be dinner, and $50+/plate.

The point is really that there's an expectation mismatch around costs that shrinks everyone's pool of daters.

For actual numbers in Canada, the Globe and Mail recently commissioned a survey showing about 47% of singles would not be willing to spend more than 50 CAD (36 usd) on a first date - and that 24% of singles think the man should pay, compared to 0.2% of singles thinking the woman should pay. So you can see the mismatch if you think about the Venn diagrams there.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-is-canada-facin...

by Marsymars

3/30/2026 at 5:39:35 PM

Fair question. When I think "$50/plate", I'm thinking $50 for just the dinner main course, not including drinks, appetizer, or dessert.

> Do something more casual first time around. Bar, coffee/walk, whatever.

The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date. They want to be wined and dined and treated like a princess right off the bat. They think they're a prize to be won simply by being a woman.

Though I truly believe that most women are not like this. However, some are, and their attitude is probably what keeps them perpetually single.

by Sohcahtoa82

3/30/2026 at 10:14:00 PM

> The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date.

You're using the casual meeting as a filter for certain personalities.

There are plenty of people out there who prefer a more formalized approach to dating, and good for them. You have a different preference. Being selective is good because it saves both of you time and there are no hard feelings.

> They want to be wined and dined and treated like a princess right off the bat. They think they're a prize to be won simply by being a woman.

Thinking about people you aren't interested in will just grind your gears.

by gopher_space

3/30/2026 at 10:23:07 PM

Especially imaginary people fitting a caricature

by Forgeties79

3/30/2026 at 5:58:38 PM

The problem with that is there are women that will scoff at a man trying to do something casual like coffee, tea, or ice cream for a first date.

404 Problems Not Found

If the idea of a causal first date appeals to you, but not to the other party, you probably aren't a good match. Swipe left and find somebody else.

by alistairSH

3/30/2026 at 7:32:42 PM

[dead]

by alex43578

3/30/2026 at 7:32:00 PM

If somebody gave me shade for a casual first date before we’ve even met in person that’s not someone I’d want to take on a date anyway. Not even saying they’re wrong or unreasonable, just think that if someone is vocally complaining about that maybe we aren’t a good fit.

You clearly think it’s poor behavior so why are you worried about striking out with them?

by Forgeties79

3/30/2026 at 5:53:23 PM

You've missed the point. The point is that the women in question demand it. There is no shortage of women on social media ranting about how lazy or cheap men are who want to do coffee or drinks for a first date. Or especially a walk. If you suggest a walk for a first date there's a strong chance you'll never hear from her again.

by mikebenfield

3/30/2026 at 5:59:42 PM

So, you've saved yourself the time and expense of a shared walk and two cups of coffee. Isn't that a win? Unless you are just looking to get laid, in which case, suck it up and buy dinner, I guess.

by alistairSH

3/30/2026 at 7:10:29 PM

Yes, but the point is that people are not successful on these apps because of those expectations. A lot of people have sort of let the whole online dating thing go straight to their head. And now, theyd rather die alone than be slightly uncomfortable for a few minutes.

by array_key_first

3/30/2026 at 7:36:15 PM

Why are you guys so concerned with these people?

Let them live their lives. I guarantee you they are not dying alone or whatever mortal curse you wish to invoke.

by hackable_sand

3/30/2026 at 8:07:17 PM

I'm not, was just responding to the apparent frustration and finding people who want expensive dinners dates. If that's not your thing, great, there are people out there who would love a coffee and a walk or whatever. I'm one of them. A formal dinner on a first date sounds awful to my slightly shy and introverted self. I'd much rather go hiking or something.

by alistairSH

3/31/2026 at 12:51:03 PM

I don’t think they were talking about you

by Forgeties79

3/31/2026 at 1:52:33 AM

I'm not concerned with them - I'm just explaining why dating apps suck.

I'm also not casting a curse on anyone, you misunderstood. I'm not saying I'm better than them so this doesn't happen to me. No, it also happens to me.

Because this is by design. This is systemic. The apps are designed in such a way to make your expectations unrealistic and thereby perpetually let you down, because that's how you continue to use the app!

by array_key_first

3/30/2026 at 6:44:10 PM

Most of the complaints I've seen are about men being rude and aggressive.

I can tell you from experience that it's a lot scarier to date men.

by sapphicsnail

3/30/2026 at 4:13:46 PM

I had my OKC account hacked or merged to in the same fashion. I've never had this happen before with any online service.

by the__alchemist

3/30/2026 at 9:10:40 PM

"As part of a settlement... will be prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies."

Did I miss it, or were there no other parts to this settlement mentioned?

In other words: no punishment at all.

by MoonWalk

3/31/2026 at 12:14:20 AM

Your punishment is that you will now have to follow the rules

by maest

3/31/2026 at 2:28:27 AM

Or just do it a different way until they get caught again.

by lazide

3/30/2026 at 3:50:32 PM

Do I interpret the settlement proposal correctly that the unlawfully-transmitted copies, and any training outcomes derived from them, are not ordered purged?

by altairprime

3/30/2026 at 4:02:25 PM

No class action or fines for discrimination based on gender? OkCupid gave users different prices based on whether they selected male or female for their profile.

by rationalist

3/30/2026 at 4:11:45 PM

>OkCupid gave users different prices based on whether they selected male or female for their profile.

never heard or thought about this before, but it kind of makes sense for a dating app. its one of the only levers available to them to attempt any sort of balance between user genders. it sucks for everyone (including the users) if the male:female ratio is like 20:1 or whatever.

i would rather pay a couple of extra dollars, relative to the opposite sex, if it meant access to a wider pool of potential matches.

by john_strinlai

3/30/2026 at 4:22:44 PM

If your main problem with a dating app is that men pay more than women, then you’re not going to like being in a relationship very much at all :)

by justonceokay

3/30/2026 at 11:26:58 PM

It's not 1965 anymore.

by platevoltage

3/31/2026 at 12:40:04 AM

So you’ll birth one kid and she’ll birth the other?

by justonceokay

3/31/2026 at 3:43:37 AM

Zero and zero?

by deaux

3/31/2026 at 9:30:05 PM

what?

by platevoltage

3/30/2026 at 4:56:24 PM

Reminds of being a young guy and feeling annoyed when girls are being let into clubs for free without waiting in line, and I had to wait in line and pay. Sometimes I could not get in because the club was "full", but the girls would be allowed in.

by avgDev

3/30/2026 at 5:00:07 PM

If the service is free, you are the product :-)

by mont_tag

3/30/2026 at 7:44:33 PM

In the 80's a club near me got into some sort of trouble for that so they switched to skirt night - only a tiny number of men were willing to wear a skirt to get in free.

by bluGill

3/31/2026 at 6:36:40 AM

In the clubs I used to go as a young man, it was both men and women that jumped the queue, and it tended to be how you looked and who you knew. Although it tended to be good looking women and rich/connected men.

by rapidaneurism

3/30/2026 at 5:11:27 PM

It used to be that promoters were paid per woman they brought to the club and nothing for men, and they would in turn charge a cover per man.

No idea how these businesses operate now. I'm sure there's still sliding scales of sliminess based on the quality of the club and its management.

by duped

3/30/2026 at 7:01:33 PM

Aren't they going out of business in large numbers? I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the dating scene as much as it has to do with younger people drinking less though.

by deltoidmaximus

3/30/2026 at 7:53:25 PM

I think all attempts to explain "why <market based on discretionary spending by young people> is failing" that don't come to the conclusion "we're macro-economically cooked" are wrong.

by duped

3/30/2026 at 4:39:27 PM

If you exclude bots and otherwise fake accounts the ratio is much worse than 20:1.

by hamdingers

3/30/2026 at 4:45:26 PM

that sucks!

whatever more accurate numbers you want to substitute in there is fine, the point remains the same.

by john_strinlai

3/30/2026 at 4:50:07 PM

My point is that what you're being asked to pay for is wildly misrepresented.

To be more explicit: you're paying extra to give more porn bots access to your inbox.

by hamdingers

3/30/2026 at 4:24:35 PM

The ratio is that bad anyway.

by loeg

3/30/2026 at 4:57:13 PM

Does anything in the FTC action prevent users from filing their own class action suit(s)?

(Sincere question, not snark)

by CoastalCoder

3/30/2026 at 4:31:06 PM

There's so much shady and unethical behavior from these companies I'm surprised there's not more lawsuits and litigation against them.

by Acrobatic_Road

3/30/2026 at 4:19:44 PM

> As part of a settlement, OkCupid, operated by Dallas-based Humor Rainbow, Inc., and Match Group Americas, which provides services for Humor Rainbow, will be prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies.

Because everyone else is "allowed" to misrepresent its privacy policies.

by jgalt212

3/30/2026 at 4:09:58 PM

I once went on a date with someone who did research at OKCupid who told me that they were doing NLP-style analysis of peoples' messages that they sent to each other. Still not really sure what to think of the date itself, but it was a fucked up admission.

by chaps

3/30/2026 at 6:03:44 PM

If you remember the old OkCupid blog they used to post interesting articles about online dating. I know their article about whether you should smile on your profile picture was eventually debunked [1], but it was nonetheless nice to have objective, data-based, non-pua advice on how to be successful in online dating.

[1] https://blog.photofeeler.com/okcupid-is-wrong-about-smiling-...

by probably_wrong

3/30/2026 at 7:43:49 PM

You mistook a marketing effort for science.

by jacquesm

3/30/2026 at 7:52:28 PM

There was an actual effort at data science going on here before the marketing team took it over in the latter years. See the published book Dataclysm by one of the founders for more of the good stuff.

by loverboy69

3/30/2026 at 7:43:39 PM

They did tons of data analysis across all aspects of profiles, and had a popular blog where they published the results.

They were heavily involved in researching what factors more reliably led to not just better matches, but better relationships -- when you disabled your account, they'd ask if it was because you'd met someone through OkC and ask you to pick who, if you were willing to share.

I don't think there was anything fucked up about it, as long as it was all anonymized and at scale. Trying to understand what messaging strategies worked better or worse could be a major part of figuring out how to improve matches.

Like, one obvious factor could be to match people who send lots of long messages with lots of questions with each other, while a separate set matches people who's messaging style is one sentence at a time. I'm not saying that would necessarily work well, but it's not crazy to research if NLP analysis of messages can produce additional potential compatibility signals.

The whole point of OkC back then was to try to develop as many data-based signals as possible to improve matches.

by crazygringo

3/31/2026 at 2:11:12 AM

You realize that you're responding in a thread about OkCupid deceiving users and sharing data with 3rd parties right?

  34. In response to this request, Humor Rainbow gave the Data Recipient access to nearly three million OkCupid user photos. Humor Rainbow’s President and Chief Technology Officer were directly involved in facilitating the data transfer.

  35. In addition to user photos, Humor Rainbow shared other personal data with the Data Recipient, including each user’s demographic and location information.

by chaps

3/31/2026 at 12:50:26 PM

You realize I was responding to a comment that wasn't about that?

A company running NLP on its own user data doesn't have anything to do with third parties.

by crazygringo

3/31/2026 at 3:46:26 PM

> I don't think there was anything fucked up about it, as long as it was all anonymized and at scale

I'm confused why "as long as" carries so much weight here considering the article that started this discussion. You seem to trust that they stopped their privacy fuckups with third parties. I don't know where your trust comes from.

by chaps

3/31/2026 at 8:12:32 AM

No it totally wasn't a fucked up admission, it was actually a useful and pro-user measure (all this good stuff was before the 2011 acquisition).

Christian Rudder's OKTrends blog (and Sam Yagan's presentation at their acquisition celebration) even spelled out the reason why: some women on OKC (or, more rarely, men) would acquire the "Replies rarely"/red color on their profile, for almost never (<10%) replying to initial messages, which was generally considered to be undesirable behavior, even in the negative (there is value in a negative message: "Thanks but I'm not interested due to age/location/other factor". And also OKC could then measure whether users' stated preferences mismatched preferences inferred from which set of users they message e.g. people who say they're looking for 30-55 for LTR but tend to message people 21-35 for short-term). And before anyone points out that younger more attractive female profiles would get more initial messages than males (up to 200:1 more), OKC used to allow you to set filters on the other user's age/distance/other criteria, so you could automatically filter those out. Also, factor in the usual caveats that many users on dating sites tend to lie about their age/weight/height/location/status/etc.

Anyway, to avoid getting labeled the dread "Replies rarely", some (mostly female) users got in the habit of sending one-liner responses that were ambiguous/non-committal/cryptic/negging. And then not responding further (but without unmatching, which only took a single click). This was making their profile look less undesirable but generating pointless message traffic and reducing the overall utility of the platform at actually attempting to match people (for compatibility, not just initial attraction). Hence, OKC tried to actually measure initial exchanges to figure out which ones led to genuine back-and-forth conversations of 3+ messages (which is an ok proxy for inferring a match, certainly a better proxy than just counting initial messages/likes/votes on photos). Yagan jokingly referred to this as "Every Monday morning, we ask 'How many three-ways did we set up over the weekend?'"). (PS, Rudder and Yagan both stressed that users' names/identities/ identifying characteristics were kept out of the analysis.)

After the 2011 IAC acquisition, most of this platform quality control (and looking for constructive insights) went out the window pretty quickly and the three cofounders moved to OKCupid Labs. But it was good for the brief while it lasted. By 2013 a chainsaw had been taken to most of OKC's unique features, esp. for free users.

by smcin

3/31/2026 at 4:45:47 PM

Hey, my point is that it's fucked up that I went on a date with someone who admitted their job was to read other people's messages. If you don't think that's fucked up, then we simply have a difference in opinion. I don't know what the rest of your post is about.

by chaps

3/31/2026 at 6:15:56 PM

OKC analyzed message traffic in an anonymized way to infer when matching was/wasn't working, and what insights that revealed about people's inferred vs stated preferences.

As such it wasn't "reading other people's messages". That's according to the OKC founders description of what they did, pre-acquisition. Since they were reasonably upfront about what they did, and since that functionality worked even for free users and they didn't aggressively push premium or gate the features, I believe they were being truthful. Furthermore, after the 2011 acquisition and when they stopped being active on OKC itself, there was a palpable degradation in site quality. (And post-2014, IAC went on to sell personal information about users' substance use etc. to insurers, to which users had never given informed consent).

So I think your date explained things badly and you picked up the wrong end of the stick. It's trivially easy to write a script that strips usernames and identifying information. And it's not too hard to distinguish "Hey baby" or "DTF?" from more meaningful messages. For the platform to do that with an intent to improving matches was strongly positive, not negative.

by smcin

3/31/2026 at 7:13:58 PM

We're talking past each other. You think the ends justify the means and I don't. Like, if there's a "Read" marker for a person viewing my messages, then I should have the same for analysts reading my messages, too. Like, when someone is running grep over everyone's messages, they're not just viewing that in isolation -- the context is what's important, and that requires actually reading the messages and their outcomes.

> For the platform to do that with an intent to improving matches was strongly positive, not negative.

Do you realize how much work that OkCupid has put into their product to make matching intentionally worse (through analysis!)? Take off your rose-tinted glasses!!

Edit: aaaand there's a new article about OkCupid giving facial recognition data to 3rd parties.

by chaps

3/30/2026 at 6:53:36 PM

I did like that they shared a lot of hard data with insightful analysis. At the time, there were a lot of narratives about what women wanted and it was refreshing to see them post what was actually working. I remember being skeptical about anything being private online at the time, but I guess that perspective wasn't as pervasive.

by scottyah

3/30/2026 at 7:53:46 PM

As a former employee, we did do NLP on messages but exclusively to find and suppress spammy/scammy/offensive messages. That system is dead now tho.

by loverboy69

3/30/2026 at 4:34:56 PM

makes me wonder if the person you went on a date with cherry-picked you due to your data. (anyone who would post on hacker news is obviously a good catch!)

by m463

3/30/2026 at 4:38:58 PM

> anyone who would post on hacker news is obviously a good catch!

"the odds are good, but the goods are odd" may apply here

by toast0

3/30/2026 at 5:01:18 PM

You're funny.

I think the "only thing" that would make me cherry-pickable from their data is that I used an autoclicker to give everyone a 5 star... I have mixed feelings about doing that, but I got a couple (surprisingly nice) dates out of it that never went anywhere.

by chaps

3/30/2026 at 6:55:20 PM

If only they had the long term data too. It might make for easier discussions on the first date, but maybe there's more to opposites attracting/different roles in a relationship.

by scottyah

3/30/2026 at 6:41:24 PM

I’m almost certain these dating apps, including Hinge and Bumble are creating loads of good-looking fake women profiles to attract male users and keep their platforms “sticky”. There are suspicious telltale signs like location downtown when nobody says they live downtown in my area. The same responses and prompts across multiple profiles. It’s equivalent to them cooking their books, but with vanity metrics.

by nodesocket

3/31/2026 at 1:22:00 AM

In 2013, I went to Pebble Beach for an expensive car show. I met a couple guys that started newlydivorceddating.com. They told me they purchased thousands of fake starter profiles, so the site wouldn't seem dead.

Tangent:

I was a "pickup artist" (2005-2010). Most of it is creepy bullshit, but the process teaches you a powerful aspect of hookup-style dating (as opposed to courting for a long-term relationship): guys need to be ok with embarrassing themselves.

I'm sure there are ways to optimize online dating, but the SNR was always bad, and it only seems to get worse.

So yea I'm encouraging guys (or whatever the current term is for the one that takes the initiative) to work thru rejection.

Of course, it's not that simple. If you simply memorize interactions that have been posted online, you'll quickly find yourself subtly outed as a weirdo.

But that feeling of rejection is important. That's how your mind+body learns in real time. It's much harder for some of us that didn't quite socialize properly at younger ages (often due to horrible things like broken families, bullies, etc).

And there are of course lighter approaches (what i described earlier often occurs within bars/nightclubs) within more casual groups that may involve more introverts.

However, if you can get over rejection (and certainly pace it; don't be a sociopath) it will dramatically accelerate so many things (many of which do lead back to dating), and you can avoid these scammy dating sites altogether (I personally find 100% guarantees like this very compelling and will regularly consider if I can can just completely avoid entire classes of stuff).

by yowayb

3/31/2026 at 1:56:33 AM

very interesting. I bought The Game 10+ years ago and read 3/4 of it. I just can’t get myself to do tactics like magic, negging, and psych-ops. Though, I will confirm it works. Seen with my own eyes many times in disbelief. Couldn’t believe women fall for what seem like such corny and ridiculous behavior. I do think women are much more socially focused, tend to follow (sheep behavior) and in a miraculous turn of events if you ignore them, or don’t show interest they want what they can’t have.

I’m in my mid forties now and frankly don’t have the energy and metal capacity to play The Game. It’s only gotten much worse (most dramatic for westerns) for more traditional and “old fashioned” men to find partners. We can thank instagram, snapchat, tiktok and perhaps most negatively onlyfans. I have traveled allover the world and find South American women still have a feminine mindset and want to genuinely settle down and start a family. Again more traditional; I assume because faith and family are such strong forces down south.

Some may read my comment as “toxic masculinity” or whatever buzzword of the day is used to shame and emasculate men, but clearly something is broken with western and asian civilizations as marriage and birth rates are plummeting.

by nodesocket

3/31/2026 at 2:49:21 AM

> if you ignore them, or don’t show interest they want what they can’t have

A girl I knew told me it wasn't any fun when the guy would just do whatever to please her. She found it boring and uninteresting. Rather she enjoyed the chase, so to speak, and said she wanted to work for it.

I assume there's some variance, but I kept that in the back of my mind.

by magicalhippo

3/30/2026 at 6:54:01 PM

Or the more realistic, less tin-foil-hat reason, sophisticated chat bots are a real problem and dating platforms aren't immune to them.

by jarjoura

3/30/2026 at 8:20:15 PM

Realistically the party with the most straight forward financial incentive to do this should be the first we suspect, and that would certainly be the platform itself.

by mikkupikku

3/30/2026 at 8:33:55 PM

>Or the more realistic, less tin-foil-hat reason, sophisticated chat bots are a real problem and dating platforms aren't immune to them.

I can tell you with absolute certainty from working in the industry a decade ago that the entire business model revolves around fake female profiles and dark UX patterns (lies) to trick lonely men. I can vividly remember that it was this big open secret that we all had to dance around all the time, pretending our product was legitimate and helping people. It's literally the only viable model for dating apps and sites; anyone who is actually successful at using them stops paying. I have no doubt the big apps are using their own LLM bots at this point.

by ramesh31

3/30/2026 at 7:49:53 PM

Why are you giving these companies the benefit of the doubt when they've already shown that they do this in the past?

by Tostino

3/30/2026 at 9:21:59 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_butchering_scam

> We invest $125 million annually in trust and safety teams, features and initiatives to help prevent and disrupt potential harm on and off our platforms. As we outlined in our Impact Report, we remain focused on several areas, including safety policy, features, social advocacy, law enforcement operations and outreach, and safety by design.

from:

https://mtch.com/single-news/922/#:~:text=We%20invest%20$125...

"Americans are losing at least $119 billion every year to scams, according to a new estimate from the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group."

from:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/scam-cost-price-money-...

by ninininino

3/30/2026 at 7:59:13 PM

I don't know. I don't think they need to. There are enough women who love the attention they get on these apps.

by globular-toast

3/30/2026 at 6:49:19 PM

> FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

Google ? Meta ? Microsoft ? Oh, i see, they pay well.

by hulitu

3/31/2026 at 12:47:53 AM

Lest you wanted to know what happens if the right campaign contributions aren't made.

by dboreham

3/30/2026 at 3:52:27 PM

I can think of a few federal agencies that need the same treatment, Palantir too

by verdverm

3/30/2026 at 4:22:37 PM

this kind of "action"/"settlement" is too funny:

>"As part of a settlement, OkCupid [...] will be prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies."

>"Under the proposed settlement, OkCupid and Match are permanently prohibited from misrepresenting or assisting others in misrepresenting: [...]"

every company should already be "prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies" and the collection/controls stuff.

12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation, and we get "please dont do that again". (dad voice: im not surprised, just disappointed)

by john_strinlai

3/30/2026 at 5:12:35 PM

>12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation

To be fair, the complaint only alleges one instance of data transfer, so it's unclear whether the privacy violations were actually occurring for 12 years.

Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the false statements they made to the media and the users. It's like if your nemesis died under mysterious circumstances, a journalist asked you whether you killed him, you said no, and it turned out you did. Is it a lie? Yeah. Could it be reasonably characterized as "intentional obstruction of police investigation"? Hardly.

by gruez

3/30/2026 at 5:17:20 PM

>so it's unclear whether the privacy violations were actually occurring for 12 years.

i wasnt clear in my comment, but i meant it in the sense of "12 years to resolve this one incident".

>Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the false statements they made to the media and the users.

i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here, and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.

by john_strinlai

3/30/2026 at 5:20:07 PM

>i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here, and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.

Yeah you're right. The part about obstructing the investigation was in the press release but I was only looking at the complaint.

by gruez

3/30/2026 at 5:53:07 PM

The US Government routinely treats corporations with kid gloves. When they're found to be breaking the law, the company usually says "oopsie doopsie, did we do that??" and the government in turn settles with "naughty, naughty, just don't do it again!" It's like kindergarten punishment. But if you or I break federal law, it's PMITA Prison for us.

by ryandrake

3/30/2026 at 8:37:00 PM

Americans explicitly voted for this. From Reagan on, it was explicit policy that we should leave corporations be, for god knows what bullshit reason. Then, finally Biden's admin started gearing up the government to actually enforce the laws on the book for a functional market.

So people voted for not that. Again.

by mrguyorama

3/30/2026 at 8:06:46 PM

> related data with it because OkCupid’s founders were financial investors in the third party

can we know that third party?!

by tamimio

3/30/2026 at 7:02:03 PM

[flagged]

by fortran77

3/31/2026 at 1:58:39 AM

This is like a "your mom called" joke.

by projektfu

3/31/2026 at 3:19:42 AM

If it’s a joke, it’s disgusting. If you think it’s a joke, you’re homophobic.

If it’s not a joke, it’s a serious trust violation.

Either way it’s bad. Considering the downvotes, I’m saddened that Hacker News thinks this is ok behavior from Newsom.

by fortran77

3/31/2026 at 4:30:02 PM

I just think it's hilarious that you took it literally.

by projektfu

3/30/2026 at 5:29:05 PM

When match was illegally allowed to buy okcupid an then tinder in violation of antitrust laws is when I realized how thoroughly libertarian propaganda has won and is destroying the country. I mean we've now fully legalized gambling and bribery of politicians for the sake of fake freedom. We're cooked.

by guelo

3/30/2026 at 7:50:44 PM

What are you talking about? Match didn't buy Tinder.

IAC had owned Match.com for a while and then developed Tinder from scratch.

Match didn't buy Tinder. Tinder was always part of the same company from day one.

by crazygringo

3/30/2026 at 8:00:15 PM

You're right, and you're wrong.

IAC owned both Match and HatchLabs (which developed Tinder in 2012). They were later merged into one entity, and even later spun off from IAC altogether. They were "part of the same company" in that giant mega-corp super conglomerate owned both, but practically they were fully separate entities when Tinder was created. Match didn't buy Tinder, but it was merged with Tinder by parent company, just like OkCupid was acquired by IAC and merged with Match.

by loverboy69

3/30/2026 at 9:53:09 PM

I mean, I was trying to keep it simple. :) I suppose it all comes down to what you mean by "fully separate entities"... but at the end of the day it was all under IAC. The corporate control and reporting structure went up to the CEO and board of IAC. Hatch Labs was an incubator IAC created specifically for developing things like Tinder. Yes Tinder got reshuffled and eventually it was all spun off but Tinder started under the same roof as Match. It wasn't bought.

by crazygringo