(Reuters) -Two U.S. senators sent a letter to Tinder parent Match on Wednesday, pushing for action against dating scams on the company’s platforms and asking for information about its efforts to detect frauds and protect its users.
In a letter to Match CEO Spencer Rascoff, Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn asked the company to provide documents about its policies and procedures related to fraudulent activity on its platforms.
Romance scams are on the rise, and often involve fraudsters creating alluring but fake profiles on dating apps, stringing along victims for weeks or months before asking for gifts or money.
“We are also concerned that Match Group, through its algorithmic design, creates trust that romance scammers can exploit,” the senators wrote.
Cybercrime of all stripes cost victims globally more than $16 billion last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a report released in April, including hundreds of millions of dollars in losses caused by romance scams.
The senators have given Match, which also operates Hinge and OkCupid, until October 15 to provide evidence that it has made efforts to prevent romance scams and the factors that allow such fraud to occur on its platforms.
Match has previously been caught in regulatory crosshairs, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging in 2019 that the company knowingly sent automated advertisements via Match.com with expressions of interest from accounts that it knew were likely fake.
The Department of Justice, however, closed its investigation related to the FTC lawsuit in 2020.
Dating apps such as Match and peer Bumble have been focusing on user experience over numbers by introducing artificial intelligence features such as AI-enabled discovery to make it easier for users to improve their dating outcomes.
Match has rolled out new features, such as its AI-enabled interactive matching product, to cater to the Gen Z audience.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City and Steve Stecklow in San Francisco; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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