Take Precautions Before First Date

ABC NEWS -- June 16 -- An estimated 40 million Americans use online dating and there are more 1,400+ sites, but some question their safety. Prosecutors say a Philadelphia nursing student was conning women on Match.com. He was convicted this week of assault. Jeffrey Marsalis, 34, pretended to be a doctor, an astronaut and even a spy to lure women. True.com provides background checks. Match gives temporary phone numbers. Intelius.com will conducts dating background checks. FULL ARTICLE @ ABC NEWS

Mark Brooks: The dating industry takes another hit. It's all the dating websites fault! 'Online dating's not safe.' Sigh! Unfortunately, with 40 million people using these sites, statistically speaking, there should be several rapes and a couple of murders every day.  Internet dating improves over real world dating.  But, the industry can do more. Let's take this into the comments section... Your comments please...

Comments

[Gebhard Roese]

Dear Mark,

first, "dozens" of cases - how many are that among millions of dates via the Internet? It seems that someone was looking for a story, and just wrote it. Besides that, it is amazing thatt men are always criminals, while women are always victims in this ABC article. Seems stupid to me. Women without any criminal energy? I do not believe ABC.

Gebhard

[Fernando Ardenghi]

Take a look at:http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/95/HB/PDF/09500HB0563ham001.pdf

I think Legislation and ISO 9001:2000 certification could lead to reach the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) concept for Online Dating Sites.
i.e. the probability of being scammed, raped, murdered, stalked, etc. using a specific Online Dating Site needs to be as low as comparing to the probability of being scammed, raped, murdered, stalked, etc. using real/traditional places like parks, schools, bars, libraries, discos, etc. for dating purposes.

Kindest Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]

[Michael Bassett]

All dating sites should provide tips and standard precautions to take regarding the first 'meet', where and how to go about it. Also that whilst filtering and selective member criteria are implemented, that profiles are not guaranteed (unless stringent verification processes are adhered to) and to exercise caution and be wary of an individuals private agenda. Especially regarding info posted in public chat rooms.
Michael Bassett
http://www.adultsonly.com.au

[Michael Bassett]

All dating sites should provide tips and standard precautions to take regarding the first 'meet', where and how to go about it. Also that whilst filtering and selective member criteria are implemented, that profiles are not guaranteed (unless stringent verification processes are adhered to) and to exercise caution and be wary of an individuals private agenda. Especially regarding info posted in public chat rooms.
Michael Bassett
http://www.adultsonly.com.au

[Brian Gray]

It's clear that the industry as a whole, and individual sites, have to go on the PR offensive, not only to counter 'outsider' opinions, but also among current internet daters themselves.

This is certainly the case in the UK: YouGov's in-depth research from earlier this year revealed that almost TWO THIRDS of current internet daters surveyed (approx 1500 respondents) felt that meeting someone in a pub or a club for the first time without ANY prior contact, carried the same or even less risk than from originally 'meeting' someone on a dating site!

Internet daters SHOULD feel they are getting an invaluable opportunity to get more of an idea of someone's disposition etc. from the online communication before meeting in the flesh.

Furthermore, it allows them to ask some loaded (but innocuous) questions on their first date to check this correlates with the initial online communications.

Let's also not forget that if a person has a pictured profile, and turns up for a date looking remarkably different, then alarm bells should immediately start ringing. Online dating, if used efficiently, should alleviate some of the risk, or at least help to highlight potential (dis)honesty among netdaters when seeing each other for the first time, based on original online communications.

It's in dating sites' own interests to communicate the benefits to their own users and the public at large.