Seeking Fun, No Privacy Attached

THE SUNDAY TIMES - Dec 4 - Users of Badoo.com can now check which of their friends have joined up using their email address. Facebook users are automatically informed which of their friends are on Badoo. The site also gives a visitor the option of checking their email contacts list to see which are Badoo members. In a 2009 study Joseph Bonneau and Soren Preibusch, researchers at Cambridge University, ranked Badoo worst for privacy out of 45 social websites, with a score of only 23%. MySpace scored marginally better with 28%, while Facebook and LinkedIn scored 53% and 70% respectively. Mark Brooks, a consultant specialising in online dating, said Badoo’s relaxed approach to privacy was a sign of the times: “One of the distinguishing features of dating sites has always been privacy. But there are advantages to people knowing who you are. The best way to meet people is through friends of friends — social dating — and that’s what Badoo is trying to emulate. This is the future. “Yes, it’s an erosion of privacy, but the younger demographic don’t care so much. Badoo is for people who are a bit less concerned about privacy.”

by Jonathan Leake
See full article at The Sunday Times (the article is behind paywall)

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Comments

[Jerry Buchs]

Apparently, privacy isn't as big of a deal with people as the "experts" think it is or should be.

[Datinginsider]

Social dating is not the future its here and its severely broken. Meeting people through friends of friends has never worked online, look at the pile of dead/dying companies trying this on Facebook. Why? Because the the feature set of these startups is too lightweight. They all try to so so little with so much data. Behavioral matching based on your FB feed and photos, now that is 110% the right direction to go in, but nobody, and I mean nobody, is doing this to any degree worth talking about. But thats going to change very soon ;-)