BBC - July 5 - The London Pride parade will take place on Saturday 6 July in central London, followed by Black Pride on Sunday 7 July in Hackney. While plenty of people head to Pride to celebrate, recent news events, including the attacks on a lesbian couple on a London bus, show why Pride is still so important for the community. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots - the ceremonial beginning of the LGBT rights movement - and the 10-year anniversary of Grindr. "Online dating and hook-up apps have been an absolute win for the LGBT community," says relationship expert Dr Darcy Sterling. One recent US study suggests that two-thirds of LGBT couples meet online. Another important shift has been the demise of gay bars and LGBT spaces. In just over a decade, from 2006 to 2017, the number of bars, clubs and pubs for LGBT people in London dropped from 125 to 53. Racism within the LGBT community is another issue that is starting to be talked about more openly. Last year, Grindr launched a campaign, Kindr, encouraging its users to be nicer to each other. The legalisation of same-sex marriage in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014 - along with ~20 other countries between 2009 and 2019 - has seen tens of thousands of same-sex couples getting hitched.
240 posts categorized "Grindr"
10 Years of LGBT Love: What's Really Changed?
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Grindr Says It Acted Aggressively in the Case of a Client Who Was Stalked by an Ex
NEW YORK TIMES - July 2 - In Mr. Herrick's case, Grindr worked closely with law enforcement and took extensive steps to delete and ban fraudulent accounts, including investigating hundreds of email addresses, profile names and accounts; conducting voluntary daily searches; and searching account profile content for any potential reference to the physical addresses, phone numbers and other relevant information identified by Mr. Herrick and/or law enforcement.
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Half of Dutch Young Adults Use Dating Apps
NLTIMES - June 25 - Nearly half of Dutch between the ages of 18 and 34 are active on dating sites or apps like Tinder, Happn and Grindr. Just over half of all Dutch think that getting a date online is just as normal as using more traditional methods, according to a survey among 1K Dutch people by research agency Ipsos, and researched by Rutgers and the Volkskrant. In total, one in five Dutch have an online dating profile. Tinder is the most popular dating app, with 13% of Dutch using it, followed by Happn with 3% and Grindr with 2%.
by Janene Pieters
See full article at NLTimes
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Lebanon's Decision to Block Gay App Slammed by Amnesty
ALBAWABA - June 4 - Lebanon's decision to block Grindr was slammed on Wednesday by Amnesty International as "a deeply regressive step, and a blow" for the human rights of the local LGBTI community. The app was blocked following an order by the country's telecommunications ministry issued on Friday. A decades-old law in Lebanon punishes sexual relations "contrary to nature" with up to one year in prison.
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Grindr's IntoMore Magazine Looses Millions of Visits
THEGAYUK - May 28 - After the effective disbanding of its editorial team, Grindr's online magazine, Into has lost millions of visitors. Into was the world's most read LGBT+ news site, topping ~7.5M hits per month according to SimilarWeb, however after it was announced that the site’s editorial team had been let go, the site has lost over 7M monthly visitors.
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Lebanon Blocks Grindr in Latest Attack on LGBT+ Community
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - May 28 - Grindr has been blocked for most users in Lebanon, sparking concern over a widening crackdown on the LGBT+ community in the country. Lebanon has traditionally been seen as more forward-thinking with regards to LGBT+ rights in comparison to the rest of the Middle East. But despite some gains in recent years, the community still faces widespread discrimination.
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Grindr's Data Misstep and Scramble to Make up
REUTERS - May 22 - Early last year, Grindr's Chinese owner Beijing Kunlun Tech gave some Beijing-based engineers access to personal information of millions of Americans such as private messages and HIV status, prompting U.S. officials to ask it to sell the dating app. After taking full control of Grindr in January 2018, Beijing Kunlun Tech stepped up management changes and consolidated operations to cut costs and expand operations in Asia. In the process, some of the company's engineers in Beijing got access to the Grindr database for several months. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government panel that scrutinizes foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, worried that Grindr's database may include compromising information about personnel who work in military or intelligence. China's foreign ministry said it was aware of the situation with Grindr and urged the US to allow fair competition and not politicize economic issues. Grindr hired a cyber forensic firm and a third-party auditor at CFIUS’s behest to report on its compliance and to make sure the data was secure. Kunlun kept trying to salvage the Grindr deal until as recently as last week, when it said it would sell it by June next year.
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Grindr Is Falling Out of Favor
WASHINGTON POST - May 20 - Grindr has received backlash for one blunder after another. The Kunlun Group's buyout of Grindr raised alarm among intelligence experts that the Chinese government might be able to gain access to the Grindr profiles of American users. The app faced scrutiny after reports indicated the app had a security issue that could expose users' precise locations and their HIV status. Also, Scott Chen, the app's straight-identified president, may not fully support marriage equality. "It still feels like an app from 2009," says Brooks Robinson, a 27-year-old marketing professional in Washington." Robinson now prefers meeting people on Scruff. In the past several years, Grindr users have widely reported that spambots and spoofed accounts run rampant. "Grindr made stalking someone a little too easy," says Dave Sarrafian, a 33-year-old artist and barista in LA.
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Beijing Kunlun Tech Must Sell Grindr by 2020 Over US National Security Fears
BLOOMBERG - May 14 - Beijing Kunlun Tech, The Chinese owner of Grindr, is required to sell the app by June 2020 under an agreement with US officials who raised national security concerns about the app's ownership. Under the agreement, Beijing Kunlun Tech can't access information about Grindr's users and transmit any sensitive information to any entities based in China.
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Why Grindr Could Be the Next Media Powerhouse
THE DRUM - Apr 24 - With engagement levels that are twice that of the second most popular platform, Instagram, Grindr is a cash cow with 95% brand awareness in the LGBTQ community. It could be the most valuable media acquisition of 2019. It is likely to sell at a discount given the US government's recent ultimatum and the likelihood that Kunlun will sell it at auction. The LGBTQ market has enormous buying power, boasting ~$100B in the US. If the right media company acquires Grindr and repositions it as the leading LGBTQ media company, the brand could conceivably expand into other businesses. While many in the industry believe the company will sell between $250 - $500M, there is no reason why Grindr couldn't evolve to become a $5 – $10B business.
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Behind the Profile: Facing Discrimination on Grindr
TORONTO OBSERVER - Apr 14 - "Online discrimination has reached epidemic proportions affecting not only Grindr but other social networks," said Landen Zumwalt, head of communications at Grindr. Unlike Tinder or Bumble, in which both users must consent to a match, Grindr allows users to openly message anyone who is active and physically nearest to them. That opens up avenues for racism and abuse. Last year, Grindr released an awareness campaign called "Kindr" which is is built around education, awareness and specific policy changes.
by Kevin-Jose Da Silva-Vitorino
See full article at Toronto Observer
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Grindr Employees Fear That China Wanted to Access User Data Via HIV Research
NBC NEWS - Apr 4 - The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency group led by the Treasury Department that oversees foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, began investigating Grindr in July 2018 because of concerns about the security of sensitive user data collected by the app, which included the HIV status. Grindr, which has ~3M daily users, was wholly acquired by China's Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. in Jan 2018. The deal immediately caused concern among national security experts who worried that China could harvest sensitive private data from the app for espionage purposes. Kunlun is now trying to sell Grindr under pressure from the Treasury's foreign investment committee over national security concerns. A spokesperson for Grindr declined to comment on the federal committee's investigation and said that the company "never disclosed any user data to the Chinese government nor do they intend to. Scott Chen was named Grindr's CTO shortly after the app's sale to Kunlun. He is currently president of Grindr. On July 3, 2018, Chen informed three Grindr employees that Yiming Shao, an HIV researcher for China's equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was interested in working with Grindr. To facilitate this project, Chen wrote an email to the employees that suggested putting a full-time "intern" in Grindr's West Hollywood, California, headquarters to do research and work on a paper about HIV prevention that would be co-published with the company. "They are attracted by our brand, reach and data," Chen wrote in the email. "We need to be extremely careful about their data request. Yiming is head of HIV prevention in China CDC. We can't let people say this is about 'sharing user data with the Chinese government." Company employees believed that putting a person from Shao's team in Grindr's headquarters would put user data at risk.
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Grindr's Chinese Owner Says No Deal With US Yet on Sale
SCMP - Apr 1 - Beijing-based Kunlun, which has owned gay dating app Grindr since 2016, say it is communicating with the US regarding its ownership. It has yet to reach any agreement with US authorities (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US - CFIUS) in response to reports that the firm has been forced to sell Grindr amid concerns that its ownership constitutes a national security risk. In August, Kunlun started preparations for an IPO. The CFIUS intervention, however, would put an end to that process.
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U.S. Orders Chinese Firm to Sell Dating App Grindr Over Blackmail Risk
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Mar 27 - U.S. national-security officials have ordered a Chinese company to sell gay-dating app Grindr, citing the risk that the personal data it collects could be exploited by Beijing to blackmail individuals with security clearances, according to people familiar with the situation. Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd., which acquired a majority stake in Grindr in 2016, would have no choice but to share information on Grindr users if demanded by the Chinese government, U.S. officials believe. That triggered the recent order from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., known as Cfius. National-security experts said a Chinese company would never be allowed to buy a company like Facebook Inc., for example.
"If Cfius only applies to companies China acquires from the U.S., and not companies China builds, what can it possibly solve?" said Geoffrey Cook, CEO of The Meet Group.
Potential buyers for Grindr could include Match. Mark Brooks, a consultant in the dating industry, said Spark Networks and The Meet Group could be among other potential contenders.
by Georgia Wells & Kate O'Keeffe
See full article at Wall Street Journal
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Grindr Defeats Appeal Over Harassment on Gay Dating App
REUTERS - Mar 27 - A U.S. federal appeals court refused to hold Grindr liable to a New York man who said his former boyfriend used the gay dating app to post fake profiles, in a harassment campaign that caused 1,000 men to approach the victim for sex. The man sued Grindr in Jan. 2017, and a federal judge dismissed his case a year later, prompting the appeal. His lawyer Tor Ekeland said he was "disappointed but not surprised" by Wednesday's decision because courts are "extremely deferential to big tech" when interpreting the CDA (Communications Decency Act). "Apps are being used to stalk, rape and murder. Under the court's reading of the CDA, big tech companies don't have responsibility to do anything about it, even if they know it is happening. Congress needs to amend this statute," he said.
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U.S. Pushes Chinese Owner of Grindr to Divest the Dating App
REUTERS - Mar 26 - Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd is seeking to sell Grindr, the gay dating app it has owned since 2016, after a U.S. government national security panel raised concerns about its ownership. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has informed Kunlun that its ownership of Grindr constitutes a national security risk. Kunlun had said last August it was preparing for an IPO of Grindr. As a result of CFIUS' intervention, Kunlun has now shifted its focus to an auction process to sell Grindr outright. Grindr has hired investment bank Cowen Inc to handle the sale process, and is soliciting acquisition interest from U.S. investment firms, as well as Grindr's competitors. Kunlun acquired a majority stake in Grindr in 2016 for $93M. It bought out the remainder of the company in 2018.
by Carl O'Donnell, Liana B. Baker & Echo Wang
See full article at Reuters
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Dating App Grindr Turns 10
GLOBAL NEWS - Mar 17 - Grindr was launched in March of 2009 and now has millions of daily users. The app's rise in popularity is no big surprise, as it turns out online dating in general has become the most popular way to meet people, especially within the LGBTQ community. New research from Stanford University and the University of New Mexico says ~70% of American same-sex couples who met recently did so online.
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One in Two Grindr Users Believe They'll Find True Love on the App
GAYSTARNEWS - Mar 5 - A study by Compare The Market showed 56.5% of Grindr users believe they can find the love of their life on the dating app. Moreover, 84% of Grindr users said they have fallen in love with someone via the app. Her, a dating app for queer women, came in close with 81% of their users saying the same. PlanetRomeo users were the most skeptical to love, with 16.7% answering 'no, love cannot be found on online dating apps.'
by Josh Milton
See full article at GayStarNews
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Tinder and Grindr Failing to Enforce Age Restrictions
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Feb 11 - Dozens of children as young as eight have been sexually abused by paedophiles on apps like Tinder and Grindr because they are failing to enforce age restrictions. The figures were revealed by 10 of 46 British police forces. Jeremy Wright, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, described the findings as 'truly shocking'. He added: "I will be writing to these companies asking what measures they have in place to keep children safe from harm, including verifying their age. If I'm not satisfied with their response, I reserve the right to take further action." Tinder said it uses both automated and manual tools to moderate users, including scanning profiles for 'red flag' images, and said it also depends on users to report profiles that may belong to a minor.
by Rory Tingle
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk
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Grindr Banned in Lebanon
IBTIMES - Jan 21 - Lebanon has reportedly banned people from accessing Grindr, a gay dating mobile app, on the country's public network. The reason behind the ban was unknown. Other countries have partially and completely banned the app. Here is a list of such countries:
- Turkey
- Iran
- Saudi Arabia
- Indonesia
- Egypt
- China
- United Arab Emirates
- Ukraine
- Russia
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