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

• verdverm 7mo ago
  I can think of a few federal agencies that need the same treatment, Palantir too
• toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  Federal complaint: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-MatchComplaint.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-MatchCo... Proposed settlement: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/MatchGroupAmericasandHumorRainbowStipulatedOrder.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/MatchGroupAmeri...
• altairprime 7mo ago
  Do I interpret the settlement proposal correctly that the unlawfully-transmitted copies, and any training outcomes derived from them, are not ordered purged?
• tetromino_ 7mo ago
  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?
  • ImJamal 7mo ago
    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-claims-it-illegally-shared-okcupid-user-data-2026-03-30 https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...
    • rose-knuckle17 7mo ago
      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.
      • ImJamal 7mo ago
        Maybe privacy concerns aren't your biggest concerns, but they are for the FTC for a case like this.
        • deleted 7mo ago
          [deleted]
      • alephnerd 7mo ago
        > 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.
• rationalist 7mo ago
  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.
  • john_strinlai 7mo ago
    >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.
    • justonceokay 7mo ago
      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 :)
      • platevoltage 7mo ago
        It's not 1965 anymore.
        • justonceokay 7mo ago
          So you’ll birth one kid and she’ll birth the other?
          • deaux 7mo ago
            Zero and zero?
          • platevoltage 7mo ago
            what?
• junkaccount100 7mo ago
  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.
  • the__alchemist 7mo ago
    I had my OKC account hacked or merged to in the same fashion. I've never had this happen before with any online service.
  • Sohcahtoa82 7mo ago
    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.
    • yieldcrv 7mo ago
      > 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.
• rm999 7mo ago
  This article has more information - looks like this was from 12 years ago https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-claims-it-illegally-shared-okcupid-user-data-2026-03-30/ 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.
  • dang 7mo ago
    Thanks - we've put that link in the toptext as well.
• chaps 7mo ago
  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.
  • m463 7mo ago
    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!)
    • toast0 7mo ago
      > anyone who would post on hacker news is obviously a good catch! "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" may apply here
    • chaps 7mo ago
      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.
    • scottyah 7mo ago
      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.
  • probably_wrong 7mo ago
    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-eye-contact-mens-dating-profile-photos/ https://blog.photofeeler.com/okcupid-is-wrong-about-smiling-...
• jgalt212 7mo ago
  > 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.
  • unyttigfjelltol 7mo ago
    It’s more like “strike one,” and sets up a clear standard for what happens if this continues, as it did in another well-known case.[1] [1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/facebook-agrees-pay-5-billion-and-implement-robust-new-protections-user-information https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/facebook-agrees-pay-...
• john_strinlai 7mo ago
  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)
  • gruez 7mo ago
    >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.
    • john_strinlai 7mo ago
      >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.
      • gruez 7mo ago
        >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.
• mlmonkey 7mo ago
  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.
  • johnnyanmac 7mo ago
    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.
    • socalgal2 7mo ago
      My experience was poor more than 15 years ago so ymmv
    • miki123211 7mo ago
      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.
• guelo 7mo ago
  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.
  • crazygringo 7mo ago
    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.
    • loverboy69 7mo ago
      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.
      • crazygringo 7mo ago
        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.
• nodesocket 7mo ago
  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.
  • jarjoura 7mo ago
    Or the more realistic, less tin-foil-hat reason, sophisticated chat bots are a real problem and dating platforms aren't immune to them.
    • Tostino 7mo ago
      Why are you giving these companies the benefit of the doubt when they've already shown that they do this in the past?
    • mikkupikku 7mo ago
      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.
    • ramesh31 7mo ago
      >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.
  • globular-toast 7mo ago
    I don't know. I don't think they need to. There are enough women who love the attention they get on these apps.
• hulitu 7mo ago
  > FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data Google ? Meta ? Microsoft ? Oh, i see, they pay well.
• fortran77 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • projektfu 7mo ago
    This is like a "your mom called" joke.
    • fortran77 7mo ago
      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.
      • projektfu 7mo ago
        I just think it's hilarious that you took it literally.
• tamimio 7mo ago
  > related data with it because OkCupid’s founders were financial investors in the third party can we know that third party?!
• MoonWalk 7mo ago
  "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.
  • maest 7mo ago
    Your punishment is that you will now have to follow the rules
    • lazide 7mo ago
      Or just do it a different way until they get caught again.
• dboreham 7mo ago
  Lest you wanted to know what happens if the right campaign contributions aren't made.
• readthenotes1 7mo ago
  "facial recognition" "dating app" Was surprised to find it was Match and OkCupid and not Tinder/Grindr