Fraud in Internet Dating Prompting Regulation

anaesthetica writes "According to the Washington Post, an increasing tide of fraud in internet dating is prompting lawyers and lawmakers to examine possible regulations and consumer protections. Wire fraud scamming, plane ticket ripoffs, fraud perpetrated to fund trysts, fake "date bait" messages -- these are just a few of the issues the courts are beginning to deal with. Dating websites were immunized from lawsuits over false statements by the recent Communications Decency Act. Other attempts to regulate internet dating, such as the 2005 'mail-order bride' legislation, are already being challenged in court, but an increasing number of states are sponsoring their own legislation."

Comments

WTF?

[jcr]

What's being described here is already covered by existing fraud statutes, isn't it? What's with the call for more regulation?

-jcr

Re:WTF?

[RexRhino]

Lawmakers make laws. That is what they do! Politicians need to be seen as "doing something about the problem"... even if they know that more laws won't help, they want to be seen as "taking a stand" and "standing up for the people" on an issue. If a politician doesn't call for more regulation, then he will be accused of "doing nothing to help the victims".

I consulted on a case of this.

[www.sorehands.com]

Back in February, I consulted with a law firm on a dating site fraud case.

The client sued a dating site because he saw a profile (faked), joined, chatted for 2 hours,
then "she" gave him a get lost jerk phone number.

In discovery, the email address given by this "woman" was phony.

While the dating site is protected under the CDA (see http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2003/2003 0813.asp) and the case was dropped. I can see
a case against a site for failing to do a basic check of the email address and removal of a phony profile. That by not checking, the dating site gets an unfair benefit from the deceptive information posted -- a person being tricked into paying a fee to contact the person in the fake profile.

Fraud goes both ways -

[Iridium_Hack]

Perhaps the mail order bride legislation should reflect it. In a CBS news article on the subject, Natasha Spivak, founder of Encounters International, a Bethesda, Maryland-based service, said she had "no objection to mandatory background checks", but felt it would not totally prevent abusive from getting a foreign wife. O n the other hand, she contended that, "male clients, not the women, are the most likely to be victimized in mail-order marriages. Some women, she said, enter such marriages solely to gain U.S. citizenship, then falsely complain of physical abuse as a ploy to remain in America despite divorce. Some of these women are sharks". Although the legislation is promoted with the noblest of intentions (to get votes), it's unlikely to make any great impact. Let the buyer beware!

Immigration: the Republicans' big "oops."

[Kadin2048]

The reason the immigration grenade went off in the collective hands of the Republican party, is because the half of them that thought toughening up the laws would make a good campaign issue, evidently didn't consult the other half, who were all funding their campaigns with dollars donated by the agribusiness or construction lobbies. Oops.

Grenades work better when you can agree which direction you're going to throw it in before you pull the pin.

On the bright side, it made it abundantly clear who was actually listening to their constituency and who was listening to their donors, though. It's good to get an issue every once in a while that clarifies things like that.

Re:this is legislating from the bench

[Darby]

Our law is based on the Common Law of old England, which originally came from the church. A judge who respects judicial history and continuity will obviously rule that marriage is defined in the Common Law as the union of one man with one woman. Anything else is legislating from the bench.

And if you actually knew anything about the subject you're spouting insane nonsense about you wouldn't have wasted those electrons.

The fundamental difference that set America apart from England and all other countries is the separation of Church and State. England has a state church, we don't. Out laws are not based in any way whatsoever on any sort of religious beliefs. That's what made us so cool back in the day.

So now, we have these extremist fundamentalist nutjobs shoving this historical revisionism asshattery because they're too cowardly to deal with a free society.

If you want to live in a theocracy, move the Saudi Arabia. That's where they live under your desired system.

If you choose not to do so, think about why exactly that is and quit trying to bring that diseased type of system here.