4 ms·

totally unethical, i agree. the part about the investment really surprised me. do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are s

by bakhy 11y ago

totally unethical, i agree. the part about the investment really surprised me. do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are supporting with their capital?

mathgeek 11y ago
> do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are supporting with their capital? Perhaps, but we all know there is plenty of money to be had for a company that toes the line in terms of legality. "This may be illegal" is not the same as it being so.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Especially that throwing investor money at lawyers to ensure laws aren't enforced can be sometimes a viable strategy for a company trying to disrupt an existing market - like, say, transportation.
jacquesm 11y ago
Yes, investors (or rather, their lawyers) do legal due diligence. Even so the company investing may have overlooked this and then there is still the duty of the company to inform their investors prior to investing of any legal issues. It's complex, especially when there are multiple jurisdictions involved, the laws on these subjects tend to vary from place to place. Another complication is that (like many things during dd) this straddles the line between technology on the one side and legal on the other. If I were to come across it during a dd I'd flag legal to take an in-depth look. (Regardless of it being un-ethical.) Don't be surprised if to the parties investing this was not a red flag and they invested anyway, also don't be surprised if they simply were ignorant of the matter due to time pressure or unfamiliarity with the territory. Not all investments are done after a full process dd.
zephod 11y ago
I wasn't at all surprised to see this is a funded startup -- it's had a lot of effort put into the design and execution, and it just screams desperation to me. I imagine somebody is under a lot of pressure to hit their growth metrics, and they probably convinced themselves that throwing out the rulebook is ok.
jakejake 11y ago
There's plenty of people willing to invest in things that are legally in grey areas. If the company takes off then the hope is that they will have an opportunity to influence policy. Basically if a company has a lot of money to throw around then there are plenty of politicians ready to re-write the rules. Uber for example. The bigger surprise to me is that investors would want to fund a dating site - period. The dating site business is somewhat known for being hard to attract investors because of their churn problem due to losing two customers whenever there is a successful match.
ryporter 11y ago
Yes, of they have a responsibility to study the legality (and morality) of what they are investing in. However, I'd withhold judgement on the investors until we have reason to believe that they knew they were investing in this. Their last funding was in 2013 [1], and they have produced several apps. It's very possible that their investors don't know about this act. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/highlight#/entity https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/highlight#/entity

by bakhy 11y ago

totally unethical, i agree. the part about the investment really surprised me. do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are supporting with their capital?

mathgeek 11y ago

> do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are supporting with their capital? Perhaps, but we all know there is plenty of money to be had for a company that toes the line in terms of legality. "This may be illegal" is not the same as it being so.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Especially that throwing investor money at lawyers to ensure laws aren't enforced can be sometimes a viable strategy for a company trying to disrupt an existing market - like, say, transportation.

jacquesm 11y ago

Yes, investors (or rather, their lawyers) do legal due diligence. Even so the company investing may have overlooked this and then there is still the duty of the company to inform their investors prior to investing of any legal issues. It's complex, especially when there are multiple jurisdictions involved, the laws on these subjects tend to vary from place to place. Another complication is that (like many things during dd) this straddles the line between technology on the one side and legal on the other. If I were to come across it during a dd I'd flag legal to take an in-depth look. (Regardless of it being un-ethical.) Don't be surprised if to the parties investing this was not a red flag and they invested anyway, also don't be surprised if they simply were ignorant of the matter due to time pressure or unfamiliarity with the territory. Not all investments are done after a full process dd.

zephod 11y ago

I wasn't at all surprised to see this is a funded startup -- it's had a lot of effort put into the design and execution, and it just screams desperation to me. I imagine somebody is under a lot of pressure to hit their growth metrics, and they probably convinced themselves that throwing out the rulebook is ok.

jakejake 11y ago

There's plenty of people willing to invest in things that are legally in grey areas. If the company takes off then the hope is that they will have an opportunity to influence policy. Basically if a company has a lot of money to throw around then there are plenty of politicians ready to re-write the rules. Uber for example. The bigger surprise to me is that investors would want to fund a dating site - period. The dating site business is somewhat known for being hard to attract investors because of their churn problem due to losing two customers whenever there is a successful match.

ryporter 11y ago

Yes, of they have a responsibility to study the legality (and morality) of what they are investing in. However, I'd withhold judgement on the investors until we have reason to believe that they knew they were investing in this. Their last funding was in 2013 [1], and they have produced several apps. It's very possible that their investors don't know about this act. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/highlight#/entity https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/highlight#/entity