A few weeks ago I wrote about the recent partnership between DatingHeadshots and Honesty Online, which enables anyone to buy a persistent portable identity credential and a headshot at the same time. The alliance also features other services such as profile writing. Expect to see other offers embedded in either site soon. This is all part of the Dating Vendor Alliance I have been working on for some time now. More on that in a few weeks when we will have a major announcement.
Today, CheckedProfile was featured in Tech Crunch. CheckedProfile is the latest company to attempt to bring authenticity to online dating.
The problem is that it doesn’t work. Putting pereived client bias on hold for a minute, once you see their system, it’s clear that CheckedProfile leaves the door wide open to spoofing since they don’t check your picture against a reference photo. I could have had my neighbor take the photos and pay with my credit card, rendering the whole service moot.
I’ve been advising BetterDatingBureau on their photo verification service. BetterDatingBureau uses an uploaded photo of your drivers license, which, while not as foolproof as the DatingHeadshots/HonestyOnline solution, at least makes use of a reference photo.
One issue I had with CheckedProfile was that the photo upload feature on the home page appears to be broken in Firefox on Mac, but worked fine in Safari.
I’m glad to see companies working hard to improve the online dating experience for singles. Some services are more useful than others, and the marketplace will tell us fairly soon which one is preferred by not only singles but the dating sites they frequent.
Update: I see that sites like Plentyoffish place their logo on images, effectively covering up the verification seal added to the bottom of the photo. That kind of defeats the whole purpose now, doesn’t it?
