Online dating giant settles $2 million Santa Cruz consumer protection suit
SANTA CRUZ — The parent company for popular online dating sites such as Match.com, OkCupid and Tinder has agreed to a $2 million settlement in a consumer protection lawsuit brought by Santa Cruz County.
Dallas-based Match Group Inc. allegedly automatically renewed its clients’ subscriptions without clearly and conspicuously informing them and failed to secure their consent, as required by law. The service also allegedly made clients’ subscription cancelation process “intentionally difficult,” according to a media release from the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office.
Match Group issued a statement in response to the settlement agreement.
“We will always invest in new technologies and work to improve our platforms to make them more informative and user-friendly,” according to the Match statement. “While we believe that our cancellation process is very simple and that the notice we provide to users on renewals fully satisfied California’s Auto-Renewal law, we have agreed to take additional steps to make the renewal notice even more clear. We continue to work with CART, as we do all lawmakers and regulators, to ensure that we follow all applicable guidelines.”
The lawsuit, filed in December by the county’s Consumer Affairs and Environmental Protection Units, working in collaboration with the California Auto Renewal Taskforce in Santa Cruz County, resulted in a $2 million settlement.
Santa Cruz County has obtained unfair competition judgments against two of the largest dating services providers in the world, as well as recent judgments for unfair competition against Amazon and Apple.