True.com Wants Warnings On Personal Ads

An anonymous reader submits "News.com.com is reporting that personals company True.com is behind a push in several state legislatures to require everyone but them to include scary looking warnings above personals ads. I'm sure they're not the first, but this looks like a particularly slimy way to corner a market. And the unintended consequences look big, too: by my read of the proposed law, even Slashdot would need to include the warnings above user profile pages." In just a few weeks, this would sound like an April Fool's joke. I hope every legislator to whom this is being shopped is sent a copy of Declan's counter-example.

Comments

Awww....

[muka3D]

So I won't be a 20-year old stud with massive guns anymore? Those were the days...

Oh, I gotta go... The warden says my turn's up.

Re:Awww....

[elasticwings]

"We found that 20 percent of Internet users believe that some of the larger dating services do background checks when in fact they do not. We believe there's a false sense of security out there that needs to be corrected through disclosure." I can't believe that only 20% of people are that stupid. The number should be way higher than that.

I'm way ahead of them.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

With my fancy new sig.

Re:I'm way ahead of them.

[Ayaress]

Is that sig 12-point, though?

Anyway, the law strikes me as kind of stupid. Something I found noteworthy from the article is that True.com's searches apparantly don't catch criminals who are using fake names. This makes me wonder what data they search by.

Background searches just by name are possible, but they aren't reliable. For a simmilar slashdot thread, I decided to start putting my name into various sites, and now I know there's a sex offender in my state (Disclaimer: it's not me, so stfu) who happens to have my last name, a slightly different spelling of my first name, and my middle initial. If they're just doing this by name, am I going to get labled as a rapist? There are a lot of people with the same name (There's litterally a half a page in the Saginaw County phone book just for John, Jack, and J. Smiths), so there's the possibility of very humiliating false positives.

The solution of course would be for them to ask for social security numbers, and we know where that discussion usually leads.

Re:I'm way ahead of them.

[ScrewMaster]

This makes me wonder what data they search by.

ChoicePoint.

Re:I'm way ahead of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Risk getting suid by customers.

god damn h4cker customers.

WE HAVE NOT CHECK IF THIS ARTICLE IS A DUPE

[fembots]

"WARNING: WE HAVE NOT CONDUCTED A FELONY-CONVICTION SEARCH OR FBI SEARCH ON THIS INDIVIDUAL." Who would want to set up a date after reading that?

If Slashdot put up "WARNING: WE HAVE NOT CHECK IF THIS ARTICLE IS A DUPE", I'm sure we will still be happily reading and discussing it.

It's about time

[stoolpigeon]

I worry about all those Foes and Freaks-- I worry about the Fans too. I mean, they are just stalkers in the making-- putting their little colored dots around my name.

I asked my mom what I should do and she said not to go to 'slushdort' any more but uncle troll said if I don't log in every day and keep visiting him at the holiday inn on week-end he'll hurt mister chips.

These laws can only make the world a better place. If you are against them, you are against everything that is good.

Warning We have not done a check on Herb Vest

[srobert]

Warning we haven't conducted a background check on Herb Vest of True.com to ascertain whether or not he is an ass-hole.

In Addition...

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

We have also not:

• Verified that the claimed physical attributes bear any relationship to reality,
• Verified the claimed income bracket,
• Verified the claimed IQ
• Verified the claimed negative STD status
• Verified the claimed unmarried state of the individual
• Verified the the included photograph is the individual in question or even of the same race, gender, or species.

As Jules the C once said, "Caveat Fornicator." Meet in a public place and go armed.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

If my "Let Darwin sort them out" proposal would gain a little traction we'd all have a great deal more fun with our lives....

We've tried that approach. He mostly just lies there, dead.

Total Upfront Disclosure of All Your Past Mistakes

[srobert]

How many of you are in a successful relationship that would have never gotten off the ground if you had been required to reveal all of your past upon meeting your mate? When we first meet someone, most of us would like to keep some of our skeletons in the closet, at least until the other has grown to know us as we are now. It would be unfair if a potential new mate's opinion of me were based upon horrible mistakes that I made early in my life.

Let the legislators know how stupid this is....

[Anonymous Coward]

California Sponsor: Asm. Fran Pavley (assemblymember.pavley@assembly.ca.gov)
Michigan Sponsor: Rep. Jim Howell (jhowell@house.mi.gov)
Texas Sponsor: Sen. John Corona (john.carona@senate.state.tx.us)
Virginia Sponsor: Rep. Joe T. May (Del_May@house.state.va.us)

Let your voices be heard!

No, no...

[Ayaress]

I checked. He is.

Failed in Virginia

[lax-goalie]

I saw this one close up. True.com's hired a professional lobbyist to try to push a bill through in Virginia, and it resulted in this: The Online Dating Safety Act, HB2467

I was bird-dogging the House Science and Technology Committee meeting the day they dealt with it, and had a front-row seat on the results. Even among the most socially conservative legislators, it was seen as a company trying to legislate their business model for competitive purposes. Gotta hand it to the lobbyist, he took the True.com reps to all the right people. But in the end, it didn't really matter. When the bill came up, there was lots of snickering, and the bill died a quick and painless death.

What about the more fundamental warnings?

[fbform]

Good Lord! This proposal makes as much sense as the 20th century physics warnings:

NOTICE: Due To Its Mass, This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.

WARNING: This Product Attracts Every Other Object in the universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses Divided by the Square of the Distance Between Them.

CAUTION: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight. The Manufacturer warrants that this product is to be used only as matter and will not be responsible for injury or damage if it is converted into energy.

HANDLE WITH CARE: This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles Per Hour.

CONSUMER NOTICE: Due to the "Uncertainty Principle," it is impossible for the User to know precisely and simultaneously where this product is located and how fast it is moving.

ADVISORY: There is an Extremely Remote Chance That, Through a Process Known as "Tunneling," This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Other Place in the Universe, Including Your Neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not Be Responsible for Any Damage or Inconvenience That May Result.

READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to Certain Suggested Versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the Primary Particles Constituting this Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the Next Four Hundred Million Years.

THIS PRODUCT IS 100% MATTER: In the Unlikely Event That This Merchandise Should Contact Antimatter in Any Form, a Catastrophic Explosion Will Result. The Manufacturer cannot be held responsible for resulting injury or damages.

PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the Aggregate Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is Assumed Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to a state of "Warm Death" of the Universe.

NOTE: The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a "Gluing" Force About Which Little is Currently Known and Whose Adhesive Power, therefore, Can Not Be Guaranteed Indefinitely. No responsibility is therefore assumed for the structural integrity of this product.

ATTENTION: Notwithstanding Any Listing of Product Contents Found Hereupon, the Consumer is Advised That This Product Actually Consists of 99.9999999999% Empty Space.

NEW GRAND UNIFIED THEORY DISCLAIMER: While the Manufacturer is Technically Entitled to Claim That This Product Is Ten-Dimensional, the Consumer Is Reminded That This Confers No Legal Rights Above and Beyond Those Applicable to Three-Dimensional Objects, Since the Seven New Dimensions Are "Rolled Up" into Such a Small "Area" That They Cannot Be Detected.

PLEASE NOTE: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That, When Unobserved, This Product May Cease to Exist or May Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State. Therefore all warranties are in effect only while this product is under the direct observation of a human being.

COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE: The Subatomic Particles (Electrons, Protons, etc.) Comprising This Product Are Exactly the Same in Every Measurable Respect as Those Used in the Products of Other Manufacturers, and Competitors' Claims to the Contrary are neither Justified nor Legitimate.

HEALTH WARNING: Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since Its Mass, and Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the User. The manufacturer cannot be held liable for injury or damage resulting from relativistic mass increase.

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PURCHASERS: The Entire Physical Universe,Including This Product, May One Day Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small Space. Should Another Universe Subsequently Reemerge, the Existence of This Product in That Universe, and its performance and suitability for any purpose, Cannot Be Guaranteed.