FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data

Posted by gnabgib 5 hours ago

FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data(www.ftc.gov)

https://www.reuters.com/world/match-group-settles-us-ftc-cla...

162 points | 76 commentspage 2

jgalt212 4 hours ago|

> As part of a settlement, OkCupid, operated by Dallas-based Humor Rainbow, Inc., and Match Group Americas, which provides services for Humor Rainbow, will be prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies.

Because everyone else is "allowed" to misrepresent its privacy policies.

unyttigfjelltol 3 hours ago|

It’s more like “strike one,” and sets up a clear standard for what happens if this continues, as it did in another well-known case.[1]

[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/facebook-agrees-pay-...

toomuchtodo 5 hours ago||

Federal complaint: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/OkCupid-MatchCo...

Proposed settlement: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/MatchGroupAmeri...

verdverm 4 hours ago||

I can think of a few federal agencies that need the same treatment, Palantir too

john_strinlai 4 hours ago||

this kind of "action"/"settlement" is too funny:

>"As part of a settlement, OkCupid [...] will be prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies."

>"Under the proposed settlement, OkCupid and Match are permanently prohibited from misrepresenting or assisting others in misrepresenting: [...]"

every company should already be "prohibited from misrepresenting its privacy policies" and the collection/controls stuff.

12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation, and we get "please dont do that again". (dad voice: im not surprised, just disappointed)

gruez 3 hours ago||

>12 years, including intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation

To be fair, the complaint only alleges one instance of data transfer, so it's unclear whether the privacy violations were actually occurring for 12 years.

Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the false statements they made to the media and the users. It's like if your nemesis died under mysterious circumstances, a journalist asked you whether you killed him, you said no, and it turned out you did. Is it a lie? Yeah. Could it be reasonably characterized as "intentional obstruction of police investigation"? Hardly.

john_strinlai 3 hours ago||

>so it's unclear whether the privacy violations were actually occurring for 12 years.

i wasnt clear in my comment, but i meant it in the sense of "12 years to resolve this one incident".

>Claims that they were engaging in "intentional obstruction of the ftc investigation" are also unsupported beyond the false statements they made to the media and the users.

i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here, and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.

gruez 3 hours ago||

>i am not particularly inclined to take OkCupids side here, and will default to accepting the FTCs allegation.

Yeah you're right. The part about obstructing the investigation was in the press release but I was only looking at the complaint.

ryandrake 2 hours ago|||

The US Government routinely treats corporations with kid gloves. When they're found to be breaking the law, the company usually says "oopsie doopsie, did we do that??" and the government in turn settles with "naughty, naughty, just don't do it again!" It's like kindergarten punishment. But if you or I break federal law, it's PMITA Prison for us.

mrguyorama 14 minutes ago||

Americans explicitly voted for this. From Reagan on, it was explicit policy that we should leave corporations be, for god knows what bullshit reason. Then, finally Biden's admin started gearing up the government to actually enforce the laws on the book for a functional market.

So people voted for not that. Again.

guelo 3 hours ago|

When match was illegally allowed to buy okcupid an then tinder in violation of antitrust laws is when I realized how thoroughly libertarian propaganda has won and is destroying the country. I mean we've now fully legalized gambling and bribery of politicians for the sake of fake freedom. We're cooked.

crazygringo 1 hour ago|

What are you talking about? Match didn't buy Tinder.

IAC had owned Match.com for a while and then developed Tinder from scratch.

Match didn't buy Tinder. Tinder was always part of the same company from day one.

loverboy69 51 minutes ago||

[dead]