A Dallas-based dating services conglomerate now must be as transparent as many users would like potential love interests’ profiles to be, following a lawsuit settled in Santa Cruz County Superior Court this week.
Match Group Inc., which owns Match.com, Tinder and OkCupid, will pay $2 million in civil penalties to settle a consumer protection suit brought on by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and five others in the state.
Prosecutors argued the company violated the state’s automatic renewal laws by failing to clearly notify users they were enrolling in automatically renewing services.
"As with dating, consumers may not want to commit to a lifelong paid web service," Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a release Thursday. "Companies need to make sure it’s just as easy to opt out of their services and it is to opt in."
Match Group didn’t admit wrongdoing in the lawsuit settled Wednesday, but will now have to “clearly and conspicuously disclose” automatic renewal terms, obtain users’ consent for automatic renewal through a checkbox, email consumers a transaction confirmation, allow users to cancel their service effective immediately and avoid using misleading sales and payment information.
Doing so will ensure Match complies with federal and state law, Rosen’s office said in a release.
The Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Offices joined Rosen's office to file the lawsuit last November, as part of the California Auto Renewal Task Force. The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office also was a member of the task force.
Related
