Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/26/feds-sue-match-com-after-users.html
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If you are an actor in a television (or other) commercial for a product or service that is later proved to be criminally fraudulent, can you be charged as an accessory? I think this is an important legal point to be determined. If you can be, it would certainly have an impact on actors and the gigs they accept.
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The deeper problem with most of these sites is they’re covertly optimized for engagement rather than whatever they’re supposed to be optimized for (finding partners, finding jobs, etc).
Where they get really brazen is in also offering paid “premium” memberships, which remove the display ads but not the tracking cookies or all the fake accounts creating the illusion for desperate sad-sacks that actual women or employers want to connect with them (I have to wonder if this gets worse with someone desperate enough to pay).
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Everything about online dating from the very start has been a shell game. OkCupid once had a blog post up about how Match.com was all bait and switch from the start. Then they got bought by Match and that post disappeared.
All these sites want you to be lonely and miserable because the difference between a happy online dating user and an unhappy online dating user is that the latter comes back in 3 to 6 months. It’s the same emotional manipulation of users that Facebook has been condemned for repeatedly.
I’ve long since suspected that Tinder and OkCupid (both now owned by Match, by the way) don’t actually notify you of matches and new messages when they actually occur but when it suits them. Which is to say they hold back messages, matches, and likes and release them in drips so as to keep you on the site as long as possible.
Hinge and newer apps are all focused on getting you to meet someone in real life as fast as possible because in person chemistry is the only thing that matters. I’ve generally had much more success with those than with any Match product.
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Oh, crap, OKCupid got bought out? I guess I’ll have to put off the divorce. 
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Do LinkedIn next!
Ha, ha. I don’t know how typical my experience is, but I find that LinkedIn is nothing but machine-generated spam. It took me an embarrassingly long time after I signed up to figure out why former co-workers were sending me messages about jobs at their new companies (when it turned out there weren’t any), or why I kept getting messages of interest from people who were working in completely different industries (in that case, I assumed they were being dumb, sending out mass messages based on keyword matches that didn’t mean anything).
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The all-consuming monopolistic behaviour in the on-line dating space is second only to that in the porn video space. Both industries make Facebook and Amazon look like champions of free and open competition.
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Ooh! I know this one!
One of these is a real message from a person, and the other is a generic come-on pleading for me to engage more with the site. On OKCupid, these fake notifications from OKC corporate are super obvious. I can’t vouch for other sites, nor for the experiences of straight men–I hear they get better/more entertaining/even faker bait, though generally from scam users rather than scam corporate.
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When I was doing the on-line dating thing I got the idea of creating a fake account that was more or less what I was looking for, to see if there was anything I should or shouldn’t be doing with my real account. The service immediately sent a message to my real account that my fake account was trying to contact me and I should upgrade to a paid account to access the message.
Turns out the thing I need to do with my real account was delete it and stop using on-line dating services.
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At least LinkedIn keeps things exciting by mixing some Chinese clandestine agents in with the spam and dubiously-consensual address book harvest chaff.
I think we can all agree that the Match.com experience would be way more exciting if they provided, say, mostly chatbots with some soul-devouring succubi mixed in; rather than just chatbots.
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I’m just trying to imagine Match.com operating like LinkedIn: they frequently tell you you’ve “matched” with some random person who hasn’t even looked at your profile and, in fact, completely fails to match any of your criteria, with the wrong politics, gender, etc. Adding Chinese agents to the dating mix would be an improvement.
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These sites other than the occasional lucky match, are nothing but late-stage capitalism trying to monetize everything, even your love and sex life.
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Machine generated spam? I did not dare to hope there was much Machine generated spam around here. I love to! My name is Barbara and I bet you like my site as much as I like Machine generated spam and stuff. You really think we should talk about Machine generated spam? I love it and Pimperantol even made Machine generated spam go away for me in no more than three weeks. Would you like to meet me for some Machine generated spam? Just PM me your nick and password so we can meet for som fun and Machine generated spam.
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