Dating Site Creates Profiles From Public Records

schliz writes "Online dating company Gotham Dating Partners has announced plans to create profiles for non-registered individuals based on publicly available information from social networking sites, e-mail registries, mailing lists, marketing surveys, government census records, real estate listings and business websites. Although the Australian Privacy Commissioner has warned that the automatic creation of identifiable profiles of individuals without their knowledge is 'not good privacy practice,' Gotham Dating Partners does not expect to face any privacy issues from the move, which is expected to boost its membership from 6.5 million to 340 million worldwide."

Comments

Easy

[sltd]

They'll just get everyone's info from Facebook!

Re:Easy

[DavidRawling]

I don't see the point. 60%+ will be married / unavailable, at a guess, 20% will not want to be contacted and 20% will be like me (fat, ugly, mean and nasty - yes, I'm just pre-populating the database). Who are they going to match with "george421@gmail.com who has a Slashdot account and isn't on Facebook"? (Sorry, if you're george421@gmail.com).

As for the response from the operator, "We don't expect to have privacy issues" - the Australian privacy commissioner is probably the better informed spokesperson in this particular case. Let's not forget "the only way to not be in the database will be to log in, confirm all your details then delete them" - who here thinks they'll respect the deletion? Anyone? "You there in seat 23596DKL were you raising your hand or scratching ... oh OK scratching it is."

Re:Easy

[somersault]

What's the difference between a "heterosexually oriented" dating service and a gay one? The ones that I've seen always ask your sex and sexual preference.

I think this practice is pretty despicable unless they make it obvious which profiles were autogenerated. If they don't do that then it could spoil the trust in a lot of relationships if someone finds out their partner is on a dating site (best friend: hey I googled your gf's name for uh.. research.. never mind, and I saw she's totally got a live account on a dating site!).

Re:Easy

[somersault]

If the goal is to increase the signal to noise ratio by finding a good match

That's clearly not the goal, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. It's just so they can say "we have the largest membership of any dating site! Come find your match today!" type of thing. Then the poor suckers will pay for an account, or at the very least become another pair of eyes that may for some god forsaken reason want to click on an ad. Probably for a fleshlight.

Re:Easy

[tibit]

Poor married soul indeed: what kind of a relationship he/she is in that they can't explain simple things like that...

Re:Easy

[BrokenHalo]

enjoy the rose colored glasses while they last. seriously, the myth that love exists is far better than the reality.

Well, I guess that depends on your perspective. My rose coloured glasses got stomped on decades ago, and I never did find a pair of those Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses.

But I have been married for some 25 years, and the young lust has matured into a more sedate companionship, but that doesn't mean it's not love.

But getting back to the point, my wife might be kind of amused if I suddenly started getting offers from gay men, since there was a time when we were first dating (and I was a lot skinnier than I am now), when I quite frequently got my bum pinched by gay men.

Privacy

[TaoPhoenix]

How does a company "not expect to face privacy issues"?

Boost membership?

[MavEtJu]

Now run this by me again...

How does
create profiles for non-registered individuals based on publicly available information

result into
which is expected to boost its membership from 6.5 million to 340 million worldwide.

?

dear slashdot, don't post professional trolls

[Nyall]

How about we not give these clowns free publicity for spouting nonsense ?

This isn't any different than the ryan airlines CEO make press releases about only needing one pilot.

Re:Ugly people date

[Chemisor]

> Half of daters aren't pretty so instead of fishing in a small pool of prettiness and getting nowhere dive into an ocean of uglies and have more choice

If I wanted to lower my standards that much, I could visit the local bar. It is not hard to find single ugly women; no dating site is needed for that.

> Ugly people are a better calibre of human - pretty people generally aren't very nice and tend to be a bit shallow
> Ugly people have had a tougher life and therefore tend to be more considerate and more loyal.

In my experience ugly people are much worse caliber of human. They've had a tougher life and ended up mean and bitter. And while there are a very few ugly women out there who turned to learning things, most just mope around the house and complain to their ugly friends about how shallow men are.

> A recent TUBB survey also proved that they try harder in bed.

Anybody who hasn't been laid in years would try hard in bed. At least the first time.

> Once with an ugly partner it is unlikely that anyone will try and take them from you meaning you can let yourself go completely once you're together.

That's true. If you have something nobody wants, you can easily keep it. And then yourself become something nobody wants.

> In these straightened times TUBB is cheaper as a) We don't charge much as the pretty sites and

All dating sites worth visiting are free.

> b) Ugly people have lower expectations - for a first date

Fair enough. If you're ugly and have low expectation, TUBB is the site for you. The rest of us still have some self-respect left.