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Some of the coders from Lovoo (dating site/app) may be next. They created fake bots for male customers which the german IT magazine c't reported on last year ba

by cm3 10y ago

Some of the coders from Lovoo (dating site/app) may be next. They created fake bots for male customers which the german IT magazine c't reported on last year based on a set of Outlook mailbox dumps they were handed. Now the police raided Lovoo HQ. https://mopo24.de/nachrichten/razzia-grossaufgebot-polizei-stuermt-firmenzentrale-von-lovoo-69557 https://mopo24.de/nachrichten/razzia-grossaufgebot-polizei-s... http://www.heise.de/forum/c-t/Kommentare-zu-c-t-Artikeln/Interne-Mails-bekraeftigen-Abzock-Verdacht-gegen-Dating-Plattform-Lovoo/The-LOVOO-SCAM-BEWARE/posting-24557526/show/ http://www.heise.de/forum/c-t/Kommentare-zu-c-t-Artikeln/Int... http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.de/2016/06/fraud-with-fake-profiles-police-raid-on.html http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.de/2016/06/fraud-wi... What's the thought process behind documenting the illegal activities in email threads? It makes you wonder if they honestly thought they were just developing test bots for QA purposes.

petercooper 10y ago
What's the actual law/potential charge behind the Lovoo situation? Creating fake users to make a Web site popular is hardly new: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-reddit-got-huge-tons-of-fake-accounts--2 http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-reddit-got-huge-tons-of... .. In the UK, at least, I believe what Lovoo appears to have done would be treated as false advertising which generally results in fines for the company, but not jail time for employees (at least, in my limited experience reading about such cases).
- cm3 10y ago
  IANAL, but tricking paid users to believe they're in contact with real humans, with whom they have the hope of getting into some relationship, is on another level.