Online Dating Insider » Legal

Fingerprints May Be Required to Import Foreign Brides

David Evans — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:17:57 +0000

In recent years, a certain percentage of scumbag men have taken it upon themselves to import women from foreign countries and then sell them out as prostitutes and do whatever god-awful things crazy people do when they can’t get a date here in the US and they have to basically buy and then kidnap some random country girl from god-knows-where.

And then there are the guys who just dig Brazilian, Russian and Asian women and have no problem flying around the world auditioning them and paying to bring them back to the US, leading, to happy marriages, children, stable and productive lives spent together.

Due to the former group of said scumbags, it appears that some Maryland lawmakers have decided that they know best how to protect international women but in reality appear to have lost their senses completely. Like the True.com-sponsored legal junket around the US to push their business model through legislation a few years ago, I fail to see how the current legislation will prove to be effective.

What follows was sent to me by Tristan Laurent at Onlinedatingrights.

Members of Online Dating Rights, Online Dating Rights sounded the alarm this January when the Maryland State Legislature introduced legislation to require Maryland residents to submit their fingerprints to a criminal repository before being allowed to contact others through a dating service if those others are foreigners. According to one of the bill’s lead sponsors, Republican Delegate Jeanne Haddaway-Riccio of Talbot, the bill is needed to protect women from domestic abuse. The bill would make it a criminal offense for a dating company to allow a Marylander to communicate with one of its customers before ensuring that the Maryland citizen deposited his fingerprints in the criminal repository. (A later amendment to the bill changed this to require that the dating company must collect the fingerprints.)

The bill passed the Maryland House of Delegates unanimously on February 7, 2010 and is now being considered by the full Senate after it was approved unanimously by the Economic Matters committee.

Meanwhile, due to public criticism that the bill targets only Maryland residents attempting to communicate with foreigners and thus provides no protection for American women, Delegate Jeanne Haddaway-Riccio is considering widening the scope of the bill. According to an email she sent to an opponent of the bill who testified against it at a Senate committee hearing, Ms. Haddaway indicated that the scope of the bill may be widened to include all dating services. (emphasis mine- ed.)

Online Dating Rights was formed after the passage of IMBRA in 2006, and it is an organization dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of dating regulation laws and to opposing IMBRA, the Maryland bill and other laws that violate the civil rights and First Amendment rights of American citizens. Its members include a wide variety of professionals who are very knowledgeable about these laws and about the dating-regulation industry that has been quietly laying plans for collaborating with state and federal lawmakers for more laws to restrict online dating.

Fox News commentator, author and media personality Marc Rudov has weighed in on the Maryland legislation. Alluding to the law enforcement philosophy that marijuana is a gateway drug, Rudov says that like IMBRA, the Maryland law is a gateway law, the first step of many by which the government and feminist groups will interfere with men’s dating and marriage rights.

- Tristan Laurent

Sharing:

Are Personal pages Patented?

David Evans — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:53:23 +0000

TechCrunch says:

Apparently, a division of the Phoenix companyâ€™s People2People Group called Tele-Publishing filed the complaint in US District Court in Boston last Wednesday, alleging that Facebookâ€™s â€œcomputer network and method of creating and sharing a personal pageâ€™â€™ is covered by one or more claims of a patent issued by the USPTO in June 2001.

The company, which provides multimedia personal and dating services ads to 200 newspapers and broadcasters nationally, says the patent includes an online template and graphics for building a personal Web page and also provides users with a secure way to share personal information with other computer network users. Itâ€™s unclear what damages Tele-Publishing is seeking.

More info on the Boston Business Journal website.

My first sysadmin, who is now an engineer at Twitter, built the first iteration of the Phoenix’s online dating site. An institution here in New England, the Phoenix has a storied past. Its sad to see them resort to these kinds of tactics.

I highly doubt they have any chance of extracting cash from Facebook, seems like a desperation move based on a patent that many are skeptical of. There is bound to be endless examples of prior art that will be reviewed. Geocities comes to mind, so do Yahoo profile pages and even a site I worked on in 1995. The USPTO is seriously broken, and this is yet another example a government run system that needs a complete overhaul.

I would think the patent in question has direct relevance to the online dating industry. Agree or disagree?

Sharing:

Online Dating Lawsuit Update

David Evans — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:55:06 +0000

It’s June, which means it’s time to catch up on who’s suing, settling and making money off of online dating companies.

First up, we have the expert witness resume for Matchmaker.com founder Patrick Michael Oâ€™Leary. Patrick now owns ExpertWitness.com, part of a $7 billion industry.

My former company, MatchMaker.com in 1990 addressed just about every area of the Internet Community and Social Networking / Media space. Today I have the Intellectual property of the 1990 version of MatchMaker.com installed and running for the purposes of invalidating Intellectual Property Patent Claims. This Prior Art will invalidate just about any Internet Social Networking / Community / Dating Patent Claim.

This is the most comprehensive description of a dating company that I’ve come across. Not only does he make money off of suing people, he can defend his ancient online dating IP. I bet the guy could put 1/2 of the online dating industry out of business if he tried. The list of dating industry lawsuits at the end of the document is news to me. Great reading for anyone interested in the early days of online dating.

In other legal news, Humor Rainbow, parent company of OKCupid, has struck a deal with Data Match Enterprises. Data Match has sued the company, along with eHarmony, Match, Friend Finder, Date and Singlesnet, in regards to infringement of a patent that covers a database management system.

More proof that the US Patent Office is royally screwed up. I’m all for protecting ideas with merit, but generic, obvious stuff? Lot’s of people make their living defending patents. I have a client with a patent of interest. They don’t like it when I remind them that there is so much obvious prior art out there, better to focus where the real money is, things like creative credit card re-billing, click fraud or 419 scams.

Sharing:

It’s Ok To Look, But No Talking

David Evans — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:56:53 +0000

In recent weeks I have been talking with a major US newspaper in regards to a story about dating site legal issues. Today I see that a New York man sued dating website Match.com on Tuesday for misleading members by posting profiles of prospective dates who are unable to respond to any interest in them because they do not have a paid subscription. This, on the heels of True.com recently getting dinged for $1.5 million for unsavory billing practices.

For years, Match and many other sites have operated under the assumption that that consumers were not paying attention to their credit card statements or who they could and could not communicate with. Clearly-defined parameters about who members could communicate with have never been explicitly set and people, while mostly ignorant about a large percentage of what goes on in the world, tend to figure things out after a while.

It’s all about hope and flirting and heartwarming late-night cable commercials until the State Attorneys General starts looking at the dating industry with a critical eye and decides to do something. They did it in the social networking industry, is online dating the next industry to get Spitzer’d?

Match currently has approximately 1.4 million members in 24 countries. Those are the only people you can freely communicate with on the site, the other 14 million profiles are off the table, although I am not clear how Match works in all 24 countries. Notice how you don’t see people suing MiddleOfNowhereSingles.com, Match is where the money and the media is centered. You could replace Match with any number of online dating sites which are subscription-based.

This lawsuit is like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge. Either there is a perfectly rational explanation for this or Match and the rest of the industry has some serious explaining to do.

One thing I know is that the industry itself could never self-regulate, there is simply too much money to be made and the rules of engagement are flexible and undefined. Heck, there are certain sites making north of $50 million that nobody talks about.

I can see this lawsuit as an Onion spoof. “Area Man, living in his parents basement, was like, totally bummed he wasn’t getting any responses after he emailed 100 women out to ‘go get taco’s or something.’”

Although it’s not going to be anywhere near as funny for the online dating industry if things progress as I think they will.

Sharing:

Looking for Dating Industry-Savvy Attorney

David Evans — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:27:09 +0000

A reader is looking for an attorney to assist with contract revisions. They want someone who knows the online dating industry cold. Contact me or leave a comment and they will get back to you.

Sharing:

Seeking Online Dating Lawsuit Comments

David Evans — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:19:02 +0000

A reporter has been asking questions about various lawsuits that have been brought against online dating services.

I’d love to have some customers comment on whether their individual complaints are motivated more by emotions (disappointment, frustration re: dating) than by a desire to seek monetary redress (i.e. get their money back)? Is this more true when the customer seeks out a service that promises specific matchmaking?

If you’re involved in any online dating lawsuits, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the reporter. Make sure to let me know if you wish to remain anonymous.

Sharing:

Is PlentyofFish Truly Free?

David Evans — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:25:19 +0000

Reader Brad bring up a good point.

PlentyOfFish site still says itâ€™s 100% free still on the site. Shoudl this be considered false advertising since there is an upgrade option?

I would think there could be issues if the badge is tied to features only available to paid members. Currently badges show up in the search results but are not sorted. I would think that once they are sorted to show up at the top of search results then the free claim would need to be removed. I am not a lawyer and this is uncharted territory. Someone with more of a clue chime in on this, please.

Sharing:

Do Dating Sites Own Your Personal Data?

David Evans — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:02:08 +0000

Facebook is again running into serious problems when it comes to clearly explaining their take on ownership of member data. This is a work in progress and they are going to need many iterations to get it right. It’s easy to talk about portable profiles, social graphs and all the other concepts that create the foundation of the open web, but getting 170 million people to agree on something is nigh impossible, they have to reach a common ground that satisfies the majority of members.

Speaking of privacy and data ownership, what does your dating site’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy look like? I bet it’s the default that came with the script its built on, or a copy-paste job from eHarmony or Match. Now would be a good time to review clarify and revise.

I was thinking of doing a podcast where I would bring in people to highlight the cool profiles they have found on various dating sites. At what point would this violate the TOS for most dating sites? If you’re on a free site, I would think we have less to worry about. There is no paywall in place, it’s not being done for commercial purposes and publicity is good, right? Paid sites are another issue. Just ask Canoodle about that.

Canoodle is the latest company to attempt to become the Kayak of the online dating market. Kayak has 4.6 million unique visitors searching for the best travel deals. I’m sorry, tell me again why dating sites won’t open up their member feeds to third parties? I know some top 10 sites that do this on a very selective, case-by-case basis, but I’m talking about API-driven web services that any reasonably-vetted developer can consume. Hello, Amazon Web Services anyone?

I would even consider jumping into the game at that point, even only if for research purposes. I bet with a few of the right people on board that we could convert users better than the top 10 dating sites.

Sharing:

True.com In Court, Again

David Evans — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:37:28 +0000

Dating sites get sued all the time. Match, Yahoo and plenty of free dating sites spend a portion of their time on class action lawsuits and people upset off because they didn’t get a date.

Longtime readers know that I’ll put up with a certain amount of unsavory practices from the usual suspects, but True is the one site, natch, the only site, that gets my blood boiling. The hypocracy of their business practices and marketing is astounding. True, like so many sites, makes a lot of money from people who forget to cancel their account, often making it near impossible to cancel your credit card.

The practice is so widespread, I have to shake my head in wonder. How many dating sites trade long-term growth and success for the short buck? Serves them right in my book.

I have folders full of emails and documents from people who have sued True.com. Nobody send me anything legal-related about any other dating site, but when True is in court, the floodgates open.

The United State District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas) has ruled a class action lawsuit against Irving-based Internet dating service True.com can proceed. In an order signed on December 3, 2008, Judge David C. Godbey denied True.com’s motion for summary judgment on Thomas Wong’s class action lawsuit for (1) violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, (2) unjust enrichment, (3) money had and received, and (4) breach of contract. The order in Thomas Wong v. TrueBeginnings, LLC, Case No. 3:07-cv-01244-N is attached. Internet dating service giant True.com was started by Dallas entrepreneur Herb Vest.

Plaintiff’s attorney is Jon G. Shepherd, Alston & Bird LLP, 220 Ross Avenue, Suite 4650W, Dallas Texas, 214-432-7771.

Now I don’t know a lot about this situation, and for every True.com lawsuit there are 100 more going on in the industry, but that’s what happens when you throw yourself out there trying to look like angels when you’re really the devil. This is the 4th lawsuit I’ve heard about this week, wonder why that is?

Sharing:

SinglesNet Lawsuit

David Evans — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:39:56 +0000

‘Tis the season to sue the stockings off the online dating industry. I received this from a law firm which is looking to start a class action lawsuit against Singlesnet.

We have received complaints from people who sign up for free and list their profile. After signing up, the clients receive e-mails indicating that they have received a message from another member. In order to respond to the message the client has to sign up for the premium service. Turns out that the “message” the client received was never really a message but instead was simply an “automatic match” that Singlesnet set up. The way it is set up is very deceiving.

Other clients have complained that after signing up they receive excessive “flirts” and “messages” from other members. However, when the client contacts the member the member states that they never initiated the contact. Our client suspects the messages were sent from singlesnet to keep them interested in the service. I have seen this same complaint in many places on the Internet.

We are interested in speaking with as many people as possible to determine whether our client’s situations are simply isolated incidents or are part of a bigger problem.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one. The complaint is common, but I bet their is fine print in the terms of service that allows Singlesnet to send flirts and messages from non-humans.

Sharing: