A person holds an Apple iPhone as he walks on a avenue in New York, U.S., August 1, 2018.
Lucas Jackson | Reuters
Two U.S. senators despatched a letter to Tinder parent Match on Wednesday, pushing for motion against dating scams on the corporate’s platforms and asking for details about its efforts to detect frauds and shield its customers.
In a letter to Match CEO Spencer Rascoff, Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn requested the corporate to present paperwork about its insurance policies and procedures associated to fraudulent exercise on its platforms.
Romance scams are on the rise, and infrequently contain fraudsters creating alluring however faux profiles on dating apps, stringing alongside victims for weeks or months earlier than asking for items or cash.
“We are also concerned that Match Group, through its algorithmic design, creates trust that romance scammers can exploit,” the senators wrote.
Cybercrime of all stripes value victims globally greater than $16 billion final 12 months, the Federal Bureau of Investigation mentioned in a report launched in April, together with tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in losses attributable to romance scams.
The senators have given Match, which additionally operates Hinge and OkCupid, till October 15 to present proof that it has made efforts to forestall romance scams and the components that enable such fraud to happen on its platforms.
Match has beforehand been caught in regulatory crosshairs, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging in 2019 that the corporate knowingly despatched automated commercials through Match.com with expressions of curiosity from accounts that it knew have been doubtless faux.
The Department of Justice, nonetheless, closed its investigation associated to the FTC lawsuit in 2020.
Dating apps akin to Match and peer Bumble have been focusing on consumer expertise over numbers by introducing synthetic intelligence options akin to AI-enabled discovery to make it simpler for customers to enhance their dating outcomes.
Match has rolled out new options, akin to its AI-enabled interactive matching product, to cater to the Gen Z viewers.