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

Andrew Conru Takes Back FriendFinder Networks, Will Put User Interests Ahead of Profits

Andrew was raised in Indiana to farming parents, studied engineering in college and earned a PhD from Stanford Uni (and also went on to lecture there). In 1994 he invented the first online dating site (WebPersonals), then Friend Finder in 1996, which grew to 20+ communities. In 2007, he sold control and stepped away to find himself. He worked on philanthropic ventures and learned to paint. Now he's back as 80% owner of FFN, has a new CEO, Brock Purpura and promises to put members before profits, and has made the following changes.

- Gold members now have FULL access to the site
- It's 2024. FFN is no longer an adult site...it is now a community for adults.
- Changed content filter categories so members can remove risque pics
- Dropped the cost of points/message
...There's also several anti-scammer tools in development

See the top news on FriendFinder Networks

Friend Finder Networks - Founder Andrew Conru Sues CEO Jonathan Buckheit

OPW - A legal battle is unfolding between Andrew Conru, the founder of Friend Finder Networks (FFN), and his long-time friend and subsequent CEO of FFN, Jonathan Buckheit, over the ownership of the company. In 2013, Conru returned as CEO to rescue FFN from bankruptcy and a stagnation in innovation that occurred under Penthouse's ownership. By 2015, he had passed the CEO baton to Buckheit. However (according to Conru's complaint) FFN continued to struggle. Conru brokered an agreement to take back FFN by acquiring (according to Conru's complaint) a majority of its senior debt and equity in 2021. Foreseeing his limited availability due to philanthropic efforts, Conru entered into a complicated Purchase Agreement with Buckheit, including a Call Option Agreement (COA). The COA allowed Conru to purchase the remaining unvested shares at a set price should he decide to do so by exercising a "Call Right."

(According to Conru's complaint) Conru initiated the "New Community," aiming to create a "Facebook for Adults" integrated within FFN. Conru attempted to exercise his Call Right from the COA with a $1K check in 2023, Buckheit returned the check, claiming the option wasn't exercised in a reasonable timeframe.

The dispute escalated to a lawsuit filed by Conru against Buckheit in Aug 2023 in the Northern District of California, seeking to regain control of FFN. Buckheit's motion to dismiss the lawsuit was denied by Judge Freeman in Mar 2024, moving the case to Alternative Dispute Resolution scheduled for Apr 24, 2024.

by Debbi R - A long-time FFN User

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FriendFinder Founder Purchases Historic Building in Seattle

SEATTLE TIMES - Andrew Conru, the founder of FriendFinder Networks, has purchased the Lusty Lady building in downtown Seattle for $3M, (with upgrade costs estimated at $20M). The building, which was previously the home of the famous Lusty Lady peep show, has been vacant for over a decade. Conru plans to restore the property and is open to suggestions from the public (at LustyLady.com) for its use. Conru, who is also an artist and philanthropist, wants to give back to the city and hopes to create something that will bring joy to Seattle's residents and visitors.

by Margo Vansynghel
See full article at Seattle Times

Mark Brooks: Andrew Conru graduated from Stanford with a PhD in computer science and created the first dating website, Webpersonals.com, in 1994, which was then sold to the company that became LavaLife. Then he started FriendFinder in 1996.

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FriendFinder Networks Achieves Court Judgment Against Match Group

BUSINESSWIRE - Jan 12 - In 2019, FFN discovered it had overpaid PlentyofFish by $116K for members sent to AdultFriendFinder over the course of a business relationship that goes back to 2011. Unfortunately, PlentyOfFish refused to correct this overpayment, and it was necessary to file litigation. FFN has paid over $13M since 2011 for the members PlentyOfFish sent to its adult websites.

See full article at Businesswire

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AdultFriendFinder User Files Suit Over Data Breach

LEGAL NEWSLINE - Oct 9 - A California man alleges his confidential personal information was compromised in an adult dating site data breach that happened in October 2016. Hackers accessed 339M accounts. The plaintiff holds FriendFinder Networks Inc. responsible because the defendant allegedly failed to implement industry-standard measures to safeguard users' personal information and failed to immediately notify its members whose information may have been compromised.

by Jenie Mallari-Torres
See full article at Legal Newsline

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Internet Dating Analysis: Who's Growing And Who's Firing

OPW - Apr 5 - According to Linkedin Match.com is showing no growth over the last two years, with 598 employees. Tinder is the big growth story with 320 employees and 116% growth over the last 2 years. PlentyofFish is also broken out from Match, and is up 15% over the last 2 years with 94 employees. Meanwhile, OKCupid are have been quite stable at 64 employees.

Badoo is stable at 560 employees. Over the last 2 years they've grown their personnel count 22% to 560 people!

Zoosk is stable at 170 employees. They dipped to 158 employees but actually show 1% employee growth over the past 2 years.

eHarmony has leveled off to 239 employees in the last 6 months but is down 27% over the last 2 years.

Meanwhile Venntro Media in the UK, which runs White Label Dating, shows a 43% decline to 66 people, and just lost their CTO of ten years.

See full article at Courtland Brooks blog.

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

Penthouse Must Return Control Of Websites To FriendFinder

LAW360 - May 26 - A group of adult websites must be returned to FriendFinder Networks because they shouldn't have been included in the 2016 sale, a court ruled. The sale included ~1k sites, but 8 were mistakenly given to Penthouse. Penthouse argued that FriendFinder was not entitled to a return of the domains because its was FriendFinder's own actions that caused the sites to be transferred to Penthouse in May 2016. FriendFinder noticed that some of its revenues were dropping and its traffic was decreasing on some of the sites. It found that those sites were now redirecting to Penthouse.com.

by Vince Sullivan
See full article at Law360

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Hack Reportedly Exposes 412M FriendFinder Networks Accounts

CNET - Nov 13 - The hack included email addresses and passwords collected over 20 years from six adult-oriented FriendFinder websites, including Penthouse.com, according to LeakedSource, which disclosed the breach. FriendFinder confirmed the site vulnerability. The hack marks the second time in two years that AdultFriendFinder has been hacked. It was also hacked in May 2015, exposing ~3.5M accounts.

by Steven Musil
See full article at CNet

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Adult FriendFinder LFI Flaw

ITPRO - Oct 21 - A serious database vulnerability could potentially reveal usernames, passwords and other information. The suggestion of a security flaw first came from self-styled "underground researcher" 1x0123 on Tuesday night, who posted on Twitter a screen grab that suggested Adult FriendFinder has a Local File Inclusion vulnerability. FriendFinder Networks' VP and senior counsel of corporate compliance and litigation stated, "We are aware of reports of a security incident, and we are currently investigating to determine the validity of the reports. If we confirm that a security incident did occur, we will work to address any issues and notify any customers that may be affected."

by Jane McCallion
See full article at ITPro

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The Creator Of The First Online Dating Site Is Still Dating Online

MOTHERBOARD - June 16 - Andrew Conru started Web Personals, the first online dating site, in 1993. The idea struck him in his dorm room as a way to kickstart his love life after a breakup. He tried newspaper personals, and video dating. It was "a very manual process," Conru recalled. But Web Personals featured large photos and a whole page of text per profile. Web Personals took two months to build. It was written in C++. In the 18 months Conru ran the site, there were 120K sign ups. He later sold it to Telepersonals for $100K, and launched FriendFinder.com. FriendFinder had users posting nudes, so Conru created AdultFriendFinder.com. Penthouse bought FriendFinder Networks in 2007 for $500M, filing for an IPO in 2008. They hoped to raise $460M but only had $220M by 2010, which Conru bought back and has been the company's chairman since 2013. He has been dating online for 20 years and has never been married. He has no plans on settling down. "I'm still single, which is the irony of all this," he said.

by Nadja Sayej
See full article at Motherboard

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Adult FriendFinder Creator Is On A Quest To Find Robot Souls

VOCATIV.COM - May 20 - Andrew Conru, an internet pioneer, is trying to determine at what point artificial intelligence develops emotional intelligence, and he thinks he can do it with an art contest. ~31 different robots competed for $100K in prizes at the first annual International Robot Art Competition. "We're trying to answer the question: Is it possible for robots to create something beautiful?", Conru said. "On the surface, it looks like just a painting or art contest, but it's actually a contest to see if we can put a soul or an emotional component in this technology. In 1994, Conru launched WebPersonals, the first online dating site. He sold the company a year later and started FriendFinder, one of the first social networking site. From the very beginning, Conru noticed that most users were just posting nude photos and looking for sex, so he created Adult FriendFinder. In 2007, Conru sold FriendFinder Networks to Penthouse Media Group for $500M, but he remains the CEO. Since building the FriendFinder empire, Conru has discovered his passion for art. In 2015, he completed one painting a day. Now, he posts weekly paintings to his blog, dailyoil.

by Jennings Brown
See full article at Vocativ.com

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

FriendFinder Networks Sold Its Penthouse Subsidiary

BUSINESS WIRE - Feb 24 - FriendFinder Networks have sold all of the shares of the companies comprising FFN's Penthouse enterprise to Penthouse Global Media. I asked FFN's CEO for comment. Here's the inside track. "We decided that given our intense focus on dating and cams, we weren't in the best position to give Penthouse the undivided attention it deserves, and Kelly Holland is really passionate about giving it this undivided attention and raised the money to do a management buy-out. We're going to be continuing with live caming of Penthouse models so this arrangement was really a win-win for both parties."

See full article at BusinessWire

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

AdultFriendFinder Offers One Month Free To Users Of Its Competitors

BUSINESS WIRE - Feb 4 - FriendFinder Networks promises to never use female bots with fake profiles as a method of luring new members. The company is now offering free one-month Gold memberships to anyone who signs up on AdultFriendFinder and can show proof of membership in a competitive adult dating site.

See full article at Businesswire

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

FriendFinder Might Sell Penthouse

NYPOST - Oct 20 - Adult magazine Penthouse, at one time a top-selling rival to Playboy, is going to be sold again by its current owner, FriendFinder Networks.

by Keith J. Kelly
See full article at NYPost

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Andrew Conru: “Fembots Do Not Belong In The Internet Dating Industry”

BUSINESSWIRE - Sep 15 - There has been recent publicity surrounding Ashley Madison, particularly allegations that it used computer-generated female "bots" to lure men to become paying members. "FriendFinder has never created and used computer-generated accounts," commented Dr. Andrew Conru, Chairman and Founder of FriendFinder. “This business practice is repugnant to us; it shows a total lack of respect for the users. Companies like AshleyMadison need to exit this industry,” said Dr. Conru.

See full article at BusinessWire

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