Online dating (or Internet dating ) is a system that lets people find and introduce themselves to new personal connections via the Internet, usually with the intention of developing personal, romantic, or sexual relationships. The online dating service is a company that provides custom mechanisms (generally websites or apps) for online dating through the use of personal computers or mobile devices connected to the Internet. Such companies offer a variety of unmoderated matchmaking services, most of which are profile-based.
Online dating services allow users to become "members" by creating profiles and uploading personal information including (but not limited to) age, gender, sexual orientation, location, and appearance. Most services also encourage members to add photos or videos to their profiles. Once a profile is created, members can view other members' profiles of the service, using visible profile information to decide whether to start contacts or not. Most services offer digital messaging, while others provide additional services such as webcasts, online chats, phone chats (VOIP), and message boards. Members can restrict their interaction to online space, or they can set the date to meet in person.
The immense diversity of online dating services currently exists. Some have a broad membership base of diverse users looking for different types of relationships. Other sites target very specific demographics based on features like interests, locations, religions, or the same type of relationship. Online dating services are also very different in their income stream. Some sites are completely free and depend on advertising for revenue. Others use the freemium income model, offering free registration and usage, with optional, paid, and premium services. Others just rely on paid membership subscriptions.
The opinions and use of online dating services are also very different. The 2005 data study collected by Pew Internet & amp; The American Life Project found that individuals are more likely to use online dating services if they use the Internet for more tasks, and tend not to use such services if they trust others. It is possible that online dating modes resonate with the conceptual orientation of some participants toward the process of finding a romantic partner. That is, online dating sites use the conceptual framework of "market metaphors" to help people find potential matches, with layouts and functions that make it easy to quickly browse and select profiles in a way similar to the way people browse online stores. Under this metaphor, members of the services provided can "shop" for potential relationship partners and "sell" themselves in the hope of finding a successful partner.
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By the end of November 2004, there were 844 lifestyles and dating sites, a 38% increase since the beginning of the year, according to Hitwise Inc. The stigma associated with online dating has declined over the years and people are seeing more positive online dating. The 2006 Pew Internet & amp; American Life Project on Online Dating notes an increasing use of online dating sites by Americans to pursue their romantic interests. About one in ten respondents reported visiting this online dating website. In 2005-2012, about 34.95% of Americans reported meeting their spouses online. The Pew Research Center survey of 2016 revealed that the use of online dating sites by American adults increased from 9% in 2013, to 12% by 2015. Furthermore, during this period, the use of age between 18 to 24 years increased threefold, between the ages of 55 and 65 years doubled.
Online daters may have a more liberal social attitude than the general population in the United States. According to a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, 80% of users, and 55% non-users, say that online dating sites are a good way to meet potential partners. In addition, respondents feel that online dating is easier, more efficient than other methods, and gives access to a larger set of potential partners. Increasing dating and marriage outside traditional social circles can be a factor contributing to the change of society by chance, including the increasing number of interracial marriages. On the other hand, about 45% of respondents feel that online dating is more dangerous than other methods. The look on online dating is similar across all sexes, with women expressing more concerns about safety than men.
Niche dating sites
Sites with specific demographics have become popular as a way to narrow down the potential set of matches. Successful niche sites pair people with race, sexual or religious orientation. As of March 2008, the top 5 sites overall had 7% less market share than they did a year ago, while the top sites of the top five major dating categories made huge profits. Niche sites serve people with special interests, such as sports fans, racing fans and automotive, medical or other professionals, people with political or religious preferences (eg, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc.), Persons with medical conditions eg, HIV, obesity), or those who live in rural farming communities.
Online recognition service
In 2008, a variety of online dating models appeared in the form of an introductory site, where members had to search for and contact other members, who introduced them to other members they deem compatible. The introductory site differs from traditional online dating models, and attracts significant numbers of users and significant investor interest.
Economic trends
Since 2003, several free dating sites, which operate on ad revenue rather than monthly subscriptions, have emerged and are becoming increasingly popular. Other free online partial dating services offer only limited rights to free members, or just for short periods. Although some sites offer free trial and/or profiles, most memberships can cost up to $ 60 per month.
In 2008, online dating services in the United States earned $ 957 million in revenue.
In Eastern Europe, popular sites offer full access to messaging and profile, but provide additional services to pay, such as prioritizing profile positions, deleting ads, and giving users paid access to more sophisticated search engines. Such sites earn revenue from a mix of ads and the sale of additional options. This model also allows users to switch between free and paid status as they wish, with sites receiving various online currencies and payment options.
Most free dating sites rely on advertising revenue, using tools like Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. Because ad revenue is simpler compared to membership fees, this model requires a large number of page views to achieve profitability. However, Sam Yagan describes dating sites as an ideal advertising platform because of the wealth of demographic data provided by users.
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Controversy
Trust and security
There are various opinions about online dating security. More than 50% of study participants in the 2011 study did not see online dating as a malicious activity, while 43% thought that online dating involves risk. Since online dating takes place in a virtual space, it may be misidentified or falsified profile information. While some sites do background checks on members, many do not, it generates some uncertainty around the member's identity. For example, some profiles may not represent real humans, but "feed profiles" placed online by site owners to attract new paying members, or "spam profiles" made by advertisers to market their services and products.
Profiles created by real humans also have the potential to become problematic. For example, online dating sites can expose more female members in particular to stalking, fraud, and sexual abuse by online predators. A less dangerous misnomer is that members can lie about their height, weight, age, or marital status in an attempt to market or brand themselves in some way. Users can also carefully manipulate profiles as a form of impression management. Members of online dating sites can try to balance accurate representations by maintaining their image in the desired way. One study found that nine out of ten participants lie on at least one attribute, although the lies are often few; weight is the most lied attribute, and age is the most lied to. In addition, knowing a large amount of superficial information about the interests of potential partners can lead to a false sense of security when meeting new people. Misrepresentation may be less likely on marriage sites than on regular dating sites. Some dating services have been created specifically for those living with HIV and other STIs in an attempt to eliminate the need to lie about one's health to find a partner.
Media coverage of crimes related to online dating can also contribute to risk perception. However, online dating may also have advantages over conventional dating (offline) as it offers unprecedented access to potential partners for single people who do not have that access.
The emergence of dating sites that promote adultery, like Ashley Madison, has caused some controversy. Separation of marriage occurs in about 6% of online couples, compared with 7.6% of offline couples. The average marital satisfaction score is 5.64 and 5.48 for online and offline couples, respectively.
Billing
Online subscription-based services may suffer complaints about billing practices. Some online dating service providers may have fake membership fees or credit card charges. Some sites do not allow members to view the available profiles before paying a subscription fee. In addition, different functions can be offered to members who have paid or have not paid for a subscription, so there is confusion around who can see or contact who.
Consolidation in the online dating industry has led to different newspapers and magazines now advertise the same website database with different names. In the UK, for example, Time Out ("London Dating"), The Times ("Encounters"), and The Daily Telegraph ("Kindred Spirits "), all offering portals with different names to the same service - meaning that people who subscribe through more than one publication unknowingly have paid more than once for access to the same service.
Gender balanced ratio
On any dating site, gender ratios are generally unbalanced. A website may have two women for every man, but they may be in the 35th range, whereas men are generally under 35. Little is known about the sex ratio that is controlled for age. Membership of eHarmony is about 57% of women and 43% of men, while the ratio at Match.com is the opposite. When someone enters a niche-specific site where the primary demographic is male, a person usually gets a very unbalanced ratio between men and women or men with men.
Studies show that men are far more likely to send messages on dating sites than women. In addition, men tend to send messages to the most attractive women regardless of their own fascination. This leads to the most attractive women on these sites who receive so many messages, which in some cases can cause them to leave the site.
There is some evidence that there may be differences in how women judge the attractiveness of men online compared to how men judge the attractiveness of women. The distribution of ratings given by male female attractiveness appears to be normal distribution, while the male rank given by women is highly skewed, with 80% of men rated as below average. This shows that women are actually more picky than men when it comes to appearances on online dating sites.
Discrimination
The gay rights group has complained that certain websites that limit their dating services to heterosexual couples are discriminating against homosexuals. Homosexual customers from the popular eHarmony dating website have made a lot of effort to demand discriminatory practices. eHarmony was sued in 2007 by a lesbian who claimed that "[s] there is a painful and disappointing direct discrimination for a business that is open to the public today." Given discrimination by sexual orientation with dating sites, some services like GayDar.net and Chemistry.com are more serving homosexual dating.
Fewer than half of the internet daters are open to dating people of all races. Consistent with social exchange theory and group positions, Asians, Latinos and blacks are more open to dating white people than with whites dating them. Of those who stated racial preferences, 97% of white men excluded black women, 48% excluding Latinas, and 53% excluding Asian women. In contrast, white men were excluded by 76% of black women, 33% Latinas, and only 11% of Asian women. Similarly, 92% of white women exclude black men, 77% exclude Latinos, and 93% exclude Asian men. 71% of black men, 31% of Latinos, and 36% of Asian men excluded white women.
Lawsuits filed against online dating services
The 2011 class action suit alleged Match.com failed to delete the inactive profile, did not accurately disclose the number of active members, and did not supervise the site for fake profiles; inclusion of expired and spam profiles as valid that is served to artificially inflate the total number of profiles and disguise the oblique gender ratios in which the active user is a disproportionate single man. The suit claimed up to 60 percent were inactive profiles, fake users or fraud. Some spam profiles are suspected of using pictures of porn actresses, models, or people from other dating sites. The former employee is suspected on a regular basis and deliberately exaggerates the number of active members on the website and a large percentage is not an actual member but a 'filler profile'.
The 2012 class action against Successful Success ends with a $ 1.4 million California jury award in November 2014 in compensation and $ 15 million in damages. SuccessfulMatch operates a dating site for people with STDs, PositiveSingles, which are advertised as offering "full anonymous profiles" that are "100% confidential". The company fails to disclose that it puts the same profile on a long list of affiliate domain sites like GayPozDating.com, AIDSDate.com, HerpesInMouth.com, ChristianSafeHaven.com, MeetBlackPOZ.com, HIVGayMen.com, STDHookup.com, BlackPoz.com, and PositivelyKinky.com. This implies that users are black, Christian, gay, HIV-positive or other group members not identified by registered members. The jury found PositiveSingles guilty of fraud, malice, and oppression as the plaintiff's race, sexual orientation, HIV status, and religion were misinterpreted by exporting each dating profile to niche sites associated with each trait.
In 2013, a former employee who sued for adultery site Ashley Madison claimed repetitive strain injuries for making 1000 fake profiles in a one-three-week range "requires a large number of keyboards" that cause the worker to experience severe pain in her wrist and forearm. AshleyMadison's parent company, Avid Life Media, denied in 2014, accused workers of keeping secret documents, including copies of "work products and training materials." The company claimed the fake profile for "quality assurance testing" to test the new Brazilian site version for "consistency and reliability."
In January 2014, a married Facebook user trying to close pop-up ads for Zoosk.com found that one click instead copied personal information from his Facebook profile to create an unwanted online profile looking for a mate, causing an unexpected flood of responses from single man romance.
By 2014, It's Just Lunch International is a target of New York classroom action that accuses unfair enrichment because IJL staff rely on uniform and misleading scripts that tell prospects during initial interviews that the IJL already has at least two games for the customer. the first date regardless of whether it is true or not.
In 2014, the US Federal Trade Commission fined the UK-based JDI Dating (a group of 18 websites, including Cupidswand.com and FlirtCrowd.com) over US $ 600,000, finding that "the defendants offered a free plan that allows users to set profiles with personal information and photos As soon as a new user creates a free profile, he starts receiving messages that appear to come from other members living nearby, expressing romantic interest, or the desire to meet in response to these messages without increasing the paid membership... [t] the message is almost always from computer-generated fake profiles - 'Virtual Cupids' - created by defendants, with photos and information designed to imitate real-person profiles. "The FTC also found that paid membership is being updated without client authorization.
In 2017, president Darlene Daggett QVC for US trade from 2002 to 2007 filed a lawsuit against Kelleher International's matchmaking agency. The company, owned by Amber Kelleher-Andrews agreed to settle within hours after Daggett filed a lawsuit. Neither of them discussed the case, citing a non-disclosure agreement, but Daggett's lawsuit gave many details of his complaint with the California-based company. "Because of his senior level position at a local company, [he] felt that a social dating site did not give him the level of screening and privacy he was looking for," the lawsuit said. He chose the company's most expensive plan, the $ 150,000 CEO level, which guarantees his matches from around the world and Kelleher-Andrews personal attention. But Daggett says he does not get what he paid for. Instead, she experienced brief romantic difficulties with people who are increasingly bringing havoc.
Government regulation
The US government regulation on dating services begins with the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) which came into effect in March 2007 after federal judges in Georgia upheld the challenge of the European Connection dating site. The law requires dating services that meet specific criteria - including having as the main business to connect US citizens/residents to foreign nationals - to perform, among other procedures, the examination of sex offenders to US customers before contact details can be given to Citizens US. In 2008, the state of New Jersey passed a law requiring sites to disclose whether they carried out a background check.
In the People's Republic of China, using transnational matchmaking agencies involving monetary transactions is illegal. The Philippines prohibits the business of organizing or facilitating marriage between Filipinos and foreigners under the Law of the Republic of 6955 (Anti-Mail-Order Bride Law) 13 June 1990; this law is routinely circumvented by basing the overseas order bridal websites.
The Singapore Social Development Network is a government organization that facilitates dating activities in the country. The Singapore government has been actively acting as a matchmaker for singles over the last few decades, and thus only 4% of Singaporeans have ever used online dating services, despite the country's high internet penetration rate.
In December 2010, the New York State Law called the "Internet Dating Safety Act" (S5180-A) came into force requiring online dating sites with customers in New York State to warn users not to disclose personal information to people they do not know..
In popular culture
- You've Got Mail , a 1998 movie in which two protagonists make a full connection via e-mail before meeting each other.
- Jewtopia , a comedy game about Jewish stereotypes and dates, aired in 2003.
- Napoleon Dynamite , a 2004 movie in a subplot involving online relations (and then personally) a central character.
- Euro Trip , a 2004 movie in which the central character has an overall connection via email with a girl from Berlin.
- Must Love Dogs , a 2005 movie about two people trying to find love through online dating.
- Because I Say So , a 2007 movie where a mother creates an online dating profile for her daughter.
- Sex Drive , a 2008 movie about a young man who went on a cross-country roadtrip with friends to meet people moaning the internet, and proposed to him with his brother's stolen GTO.
- Love Translated , a documentary of 2010 in which a group of men travel to Ukraine on a romantic tour arranged by an online dating company
- Catfish: TV Shows, is a reality TV show aired on MTV in 2012.
- "Hang the DJ", aired in December 2017, an episode in the fourth series of the Black Mirror about a futuristic dating app.
See also
- Comparison of online dating sites
- List of social network websites
- Matrimonial website
- Online identity
- Mobile dating
- Online dating app
References
Further reading
- Pew Internet & amp; American Life Project's study of online dating in the United States
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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