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Tinder is losing the tool it uses for background checks
The background-checking tool used by Match Group to offer a safety feature for Tinder users is shutting down. The non-profit and female-founded Garbo, which the dating app conglomerate has partnered with since 2019, will shut down its consumer tool at the end of August. “Most tech companies just see trust and safety as good PR,” Kathryn Kosmides, Garbo’s founder and CEO, told The Wall Street Journal, which published a report on the severed partnership. “I’d rather Garbo shift focus to our other efforts than allow the vision of Garbo to be compromised and relegated to a piece of big corporations’ marketing goals.”
Match has a new dating app for single parents
Stir will help them coordinate calendars and find time to meet up.
Match will pay Tinder founders $441 million to settle lawsuit over financial deception (updated)
Match is $441 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of lowballing Tinder's worth.
Tinder will let you block people based on their phone number
Using its newly introduced Block Contacts feature, you can prevent people you have in your phone's address book from showing up when you go to swipe on Tinder.
Dating apps offer free credits and other perks to vaccinated users
The White House has teamed up with Tinder, OkCupid and seven other dating sites.
Tinder users will soon be able to access a background check database
The owner of massive dating apps Tinder and Match has just announced a new partnership to help keep its users safe. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Match, OK Cupid, Hinge and several other services, has made an investment in Garbo, a non-profit, female-founded background check platform. As part of the deal, Garbo's platform will be available to people using Match Group app, starting with Tinder later this year.
Epic, Spotify and others ally against Apple and Google app policies
A diverse variety of companies including Epic Games, Spotify, Match Group, Tile and others have formed an alliance to pressure Apple, Google and others to change their app store rules. The Coalition for App Fairness debuted today stating that “Apple taxes consumers and crushes innovation,” and that it will advocate “freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem.” The group plans to push for new regulations governing how app stores can be run.
Tinder adds 'prompts' feature to kickstart conversations
Tinder has added Prompts to help keep conversations alive.
Tinder is working on a panic button for dangerous situations
Tinder is taking more steps to beef up user safety, rolling out features that give daters the option to receive check-ins, hit a panic alarm and even call authorities to their location. Its parent company, Match, has taken a stake in a location tracking and personal safety app called Noonlight, Wall Street Journal reports, and plans to test the features in the US from the end of January.
FTC sues Match for allegedly using deceptive love interest ads
If you've ever been irked by dating service ads claiming that someone was pining for your affection, you're not alone. The FTC has sued Match Group for allegedly using fake love interest email ads to goad customers into paying for Match.com subscriptions until May 2018. "Millions" of the accounts generating the ads had already been labeled as likely frauds, the Commission said, but they were still used to generate "you caught their eye" ads for free users -- you might pay for a subscription only to find the bogus courtier deleted. Match's own studies showed that nearly 500,000 people signed up within a day of receiving one of these ads, according to the FTC.
Tinder rebels against Google Play app fees by taking direct payments
Tinder is exploring a different approach to fighting app store fees -- it's simply ignoring what the store operators want. The dating giant has introduced a default payment process into its Android app that skips Google Play's system entirely, instead taking payments directly. And if you go this route, you lose the option of switching back to Google Play after the fact.
Match app adds an offline dating coach for your online dating woes
Online dating is its own big, scary jungle, and often users are left on their own when it comes to problems like ghosting or mixed signals in texts. Match thinks it can help users navigate that jungle -- by offering some human assistance. The online dating site is launching a new service, AskMatch, that will connect its paid users to a dating coach for a chat over the phone. The service is launching in New York City this month, with the goal of expanding nationwide by 2020.
Tinder preps 'Lite' version of its dating app for data-limited areas
Add Tinder to the growing list of tech giants launching lightweight apps to reel in more users. As part of an earnings call, Match Group divulged plans for a Tinder Lite app that would be smaller and better-suited to area where cellular data "comes at a premium." CEO Mandy Ginsberg made no mention of features or a release date (other than "soon"), but did point to Southeast Asia as a high priority when there's an influx of young people into packed cities.
Tinder ditches its hidden desirability scores
Tinder has revealed that it no longer relies on its top-secret "Elo" desirability score to create matches. Instead, it apparently uses a new algorithm that sounds very similar to the old one, with the most important parameter being how much you use the app. Despite saying "the case has been solved," Tinder didn't really describe exactly how the new system works, leaving jilted users to (once again) speculate on why they're failing to, well, score.
Bumble forges ahead with Tinder countersuit while pursuing an IPO
Earlier this year, the Match Group, which owns the dating service Tinder, filed a lawsuit against rival Bumble, alleging that the company had infringed on patents and misused intellectual property. Just weeks later, Bumble countersued the Match Group for accessing trade secrets fraudulently. Now, Bumble has filed court paperwork for the lawsuit while "actively pursuing an IPO," CEO Whitney Wolfe told TechCrunch. We've reached out to Bumble for a comment.
Tinder co-founders sue parent company for $2 billion over deception
Three of Tinder's co-founders and several other current and former senior executives are suing the dating company's parent organizations, Match Group and IAC. According to a complaint published online, the lawsuit seeks billions of dollars in damages for allegedly manipulating financial information in order to reduce Tinder's valuation and illegally take away employees' stock options.
Google Maps can predict how much you'll like a restaurant
Next time you use Google Maps on an iPhone or an iPad to look up restaurants in your area, try tapping their names. Google has rolled out Maps' "match" feature to the platform, which can predict how much you'd like a particular establishment. It's one of the Yelp-like features the big G announced for the app during its annual I/O developer conference in May, all designed to make discovering new places to visit much easier without having to access another service. Maps will use the data it has on you, including establishments you've visited in the past and your dining preferences, to display a match rate. If you like pizza, for instance, pizzerias in the area you're looking at will show a high match percentage.
Match.com turned its most eligible bachelors into free dolls
Match.com is as synonymous with online dating as Tinder is with casual bonking, but even an established platform needs a good PR push occasionally. In a campaign that would've almost certainly become national news if genders had been reversed, Match.com and PR agency Brands2Life set up a pop-up shop in London's swanky Marylebone area this week, offering free dolls modelled (literally) on the site's most eligible bachelors.
Videos are the latest way to seduce people on your dating app
The dating app Hinge has just added a video option to its users' profiles. Now, any of a user's six profile photos can be swapped for a video that will autoplay whenever someone scrolls through their profile. The videos can be uploaded from Instagram, Facebook or a phone's camera roll.
Trump or nah? OkCupid now matches partners' politics
OkCupid has refreshed is mobile app with a new look and revised questions and categories to help you find a potential life partner rather than a one-night stand. The app already probed your interests and leanings, but has added 50 new questions including "Is climate change real?", "Do you feel there should be a ban on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries entering the US?" and just "Trump?"
