Policy

STD dating site PositiveSingles is looking at a $16.5m penalty

A jury had the final say in an online dating site STD situation. Turns out, […]

A jury had the final say in an online dating site STD situation. Turns out, a $16.5 million verdict has been decided. A Californian firm had broken local consumer laws and it was also decided the business was guilty of fraud, malice and oppression. Case No. 1-11-CV-211205 alleged that Plaintiff and other members of the website PositiveSingles.com were misled into becoming members of the site.

BBC News shared more:

The case dates back to 2011 when an unnamed claimant sued the parent company – SuccessfulMatch – as part of a class action case.

SuccessfulMatch runs a number of niche dating sites and also manages an affiliate scheme for those wishing to set up sites of their own. It offers both software and databases containing details of “hundreds of thousands of profiles” registered to its existing services.

Court papers state, however, that the PositiveSingles site advertised itself as a “100% confidential and comfortable community” and stated: “We do not disclose, sell or rent any personally identifiable information to any third-party organisations.”

Well that all sounds lovely, but the lawsuit seems to differ.

Two young ladies attempted to sue SuccessfulMatch in similar cases previously, but a judge ruled they had failed to specifically allege they had actually read the sign-up promises they had claimed were misleading before using PositiveSingles.

[Photo from flickr user Guian Bolisay]

Shares0
Shares0