Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Besedo, Data-Driven Content Moderation Service & Solution Provider, Advise Online Safety Regulations During National Bullying Prevention Month For Site Owners And Users

PRWEB - Oct 26 - Besedo, the content moderation expert, analyze global classifieds to identify a "swear word index" to help online marketplaces protect users from common cyberbully attacks. Here are the most used swear words:

1. B****
2. F*****g/Idiot
3. A**hole/F***
4. F*g/Sh*t/Stupid
5. D*ck/Slave/Son of a b***

Percentages of people experiencing cyberbullying has doubled between 2007 and 2016. Besedo works to protect users and owners of online forums, dating sites and online marketplaces. Their filter automation tools give site owners a sturdy base when beginning in content moderation practices. Besedo customers can build custom filters to target and repeal unwanted content.

See full article at PR Web

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Paris City Hall Condemns "Sugar Daddy" Mobile Advert

ASSOCIATED PRESS - Oct 26 - Paris city hall has called an ad for a dating site linking students with rich men and women "shameful," and said officials will work with police to remove it from the city. The RichMeetBeautiful site has been displaying a large mobile billboard across Paris, encouraging students to get in touch with "sugar daddies" and "sugar mamas" to subsidize their studies. It reads: "Romance, passion and no student loan, go out with a sugar daddy or sugar mama." Paris police said that they had opened an investigation and that the vehicle carrying the billboard had been stopped.

The full article was originally published at Lancaster Online, but is no longer available.

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The Future Of Online Dating Is Unsexy And Brutally Effective

GIZMODO - Oct 25 - When users give the dating app LoveFlutter their Twitter handle, it rewards them with a 28-axis breakdown of their personality. The app works with the language processing company Receptiviti.ai to compute the compatibility between users based on Twitter feeds. It's true that we reveal more of ourselves in Twitter posts, Facebook likes, Instagram photos, and Foursquare check-ins than we realize. Researchers already think they can predict how neurotic we are from our Foursquare check-ins. Algorithms could also use our online behavior to learn the real answers to questions we might lie about in a dating questionnaire. Just as dating algorithms will get better at learning who we are, they'll also get better at learning who we like - without ever asking our preferences. Already, some apps do this by learning patterns in who we left and right swipe on, the same way Netflix makes recommendations from the movies we've liked in the past. Today, dating apps don't (openly) mine our digital data as nearly much as they could. Maybe they think we'd find it too creepy, or maybe we wouldn't like what they learned about it. But if data mining were the key to the end of the bad date, wouldn't it be worth it?

by Dale Markowitz
See full article at Gizmondo

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Japanese Dating Services Received ~2,000 Complaints

SCMP - Oct 25 - In a nine-page report released earlier this month, the National Consumer Affairs Centre (NCAC) said it had received 1,983 complaints against dating companies. The report cited a number of specific cases as a warning to consumers.

by Julin Ryall
See full article at SCMP

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Report: The Internet Habits Of Swedes

IIS.SE - Oct 25 - The number of Swedish Internet users continues to increase, as now 94% use the Internet, while 85% use it on a mobile phone, according to "Swedes and the Internet 2017" report. 11% of Swedish Internet users have used online dating the past year. 15% of those who use dating services or dating apps ended up cohabiting or marrying.

See full article at IIS.se

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Researchers Say It Is Easy To Hack Tinder, OkCupid, And Others

GIZMODO - Oct 25 - Using exploits ranging from simple to complex, researchers at the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab say they could access users' location data, their real names and login info, their message history, and even see which profiles they've viewed. They tested Tinder, Bumble, OKCupid, Badoo, Mamba, Zoosk, Happn, WeChat and Paktor. Most apps have minimal HTTPS encryption, making it easy to access user data. The researchers say they have already sent their findings to the respective apps' developers.

by Sidney Fussell
See full articl at Gizmondo

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The League Is Making Everyone's First Profile Picture Black And White

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 23 - Exclusive dating app The League is going monochrome. Starting today, everyone's first profile picture will be displayed in black and white. The goal here is to get users to spend more time taking a holistic look at a potential match, and make sure they're not making a rash decision before saying yes or no. "It's easy for people to make snap judgments based on hair, skin or eye color, but harder to do when a photo is in monochrome" explained the startup.

by Fitz Tepper
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Ashley Madison Users Blast Objector To $11.2M Breach Deal

LAW360 - Oct 23 - Ashley Madison users suing the online dating site over a 2015 data breach urged a Missouri federal judge to grant final approval to $11.2M deal to end the dispute, arguing that the sole objector had "highly individualized" demands that could not be addressed in a class settlement. The objector, identified only as "Mr. O'Malley," had urged the court to reject the deal because he believed that Ashley Madison should pay more to him because his "personal and financial injury is still ongoing and will continue right up until he dies," and that the site was "rewarded" in the settlement by being allowed to continue to exist.

by Alison Grande
See full article at Law360

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Half Of Singletons In Britain Have Never Asked Someone On Date Face To Face

THE SUN - Oct 24 - A study of 1,500 single adults revealed that two thirds of people have never used a chat up line on someone they fancy, while 67% have never written a love letter. 46% have never dumped anyone in person. The research was commissioned by Grace Say Aloe - the brand behind the popular aloe vera drink. The study also found almost half of singletons think people have forgotten how to date in real life, now meeting people has become so accessible online.

by John Shammas
See full article at The Sun

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Website That Helps Muslim Men Find Second Wife Has 100k Users In UK

DECCAN CHRONICLE - Oct 24 - Polygamy is illegal in the UK, carrying up to seven years of prison time, if a person is nabbed. Yet, a website dedicated to help Muslim men find a 'second wife' has ~100K users in UK. Azad Chaiwala, from Sunderland, who established the website SecondWife.com, said he was responding to a need. While there are no official figures, it is estimated that there may be as many as 20K polygamous marriages in the British Muslim community.

See full article at Deccan Chronicle

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Activity-Based Dating App Superdate Launches In Vancouver

PRWEB - Oct 23 - New dating app Superdate is matching people based on activities first, profiles second. Once users have signed up, they set their interests and start browsing activities first, not people. After picking out any activities they want to try, they're matched with people who're interested in the same ones. Then they check out their matches' profiles and connect with them. Superdate has launched in Vancouver. Expansion to major international cities is coming soon.

See full article at PR Web

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Grindr And Hornet Help LGBT Egyptians Stay Safe Amid Crackdown

REUTERS - Oct 23 - After a rainbow flag was raised at concert headlined by Mashrou' Leila, whose Lebanese singer is gay, over 70 people have been arrested in Egypt. Gay dating apps such as Grindr and Hornet are sending users tips on how to protect themselves from entrapment.

See full article at Haaretz

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Tinder's Web App Is Now Widely Available

MS POWER USER - Oct 23 - Earlier this year, Tinder announced the availability of a new way to access their app on the desktop, the web. The app was initially rolled out to the following regions, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, and Sweden for a limited testing period. Now, the web app is now more widely available.

by Michael Allison
See full article at MS Power User

See all posts on Tinder

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Meet Andrey Andreev, The Man Behind Badoo

THE TIMES - Oct 21 - Badoo is available in 190 countries and has 7x more users than Tinder. He's worth ~£700M and says the swipe was actually invented by him. He always wears a white T-shirt and jeans, and does not, as a rule, give interviews. "There have been lots of stories surrounding me. I'm not mysterious. I just don't like to have a big public profile." Andreev launched Badoo in 2009. "Swipes, by the way, were invented by us at the very beginning," he says. "Other apps took it. Tinder made it their number one feature. But we had it for ages." Andreev studied management at university in Moscow, but dropped out and joined his family in Spain. In the late Nineties, he founded the first of a series of start-ups and in 2003 became a millionaire after selling a majority share in an online advertising service Begun. It was around this time he turned his attention to dating. So in 2004 he created a service called Mamba. To this day, Mamba remains the most popular dating service in Russia. But after 18 months, Andreev again sold his stake in Mamba – a deal that will have made him many more millions – and moved on to his next project.

See full article at The Times

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Mobile Fraud On The Rise

KOUNT BLOG - Oct 20 - In the Mobile Payments & Fraud: 2017 Report, ~40% of merchants surveyed reported that mobile channel fraud had increased, up from 23% who said so in 2015. Further, more than 1 in 5 (21.3%) thought that mobile fraud was increasing at a faster pace than mobile sales in general, while ~8% said mobile fraud was decreasing in relation to mobile sales. Merchants pointed the finger at browser-based mobile, providing the following responses when asked to "name the mobile payment system at greatest risk for fraud":

• 59.8% browser-based
• 24.7% mobile app
• 13.7% contactless

The full article was originally published at Kount Blog, but is no longer available.

See all posts on Kount

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team