Background Checks for Dating

Limitations of Online Dating Services

Online dating services essentially brought in the masses, and popularized paying for/using such a service. But, with this model came some problems—the one most commonly cited being “misrepresentation”. Examples of this are… you look nothing like your photo, or you did not tell the truth about your age, occupation, education, or worse, MARITAL STATUS!

Screening is another key issue, and background checks are only one part of it. Online services must take peoples’ word for what they say about themselves. Off-line dating services, because they meet people face to face, reduce this problem substantially. Background checks provide further screening.

A Wall Street Journal article (“Bored of the Rings”) examined the problem of misrepresentation in online services in detail. The authors found that online dating services are attracting large numbers of visitors from an unexpected group—MARRIED people! Several years ago, more than 30% of visitors to the top 3 stand-alone personals sites were found to be married, according to statistics compiled by Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York research firm. At two of those sites (Dreammates.com and Friendfinder.com) the figure was more than 40%

A study several years ago by a Canadian subsidiary of Microsoft found that 18% of registered users at online dating sites were married. This presents a major dilemma for the dating websites. The two leaders, Match.com and Yahoo Personals, take very different approaches to tackle this issue. Match.com brands itself as a meeting place for people who are “single and seeking a one-to-one relationship. They shun married users in an attempt to provide a single-only community. Management says that nearly 20% of the profiles that are submitted are rejected, and of those rejections about 20% is because the user is found to be married. Yahoo also screens each profile prior to posting. However, it does not reject married profiles. Instead, it prods users to fully disclose their marital status so that users will know exactly who they’re meeting. Management at Yahoo feels that there may be people that are in relationships and are looking to change.

Current Status & Legislation

Several states including: Illinois, Florida, Texas, and Virginia all have or have had some pending legislation regarding background checks. The online business community has been fighting these changes but it appears as though some of these laws will be passed. In Illinois for instance, legislation had passed their House of Representatives by nearly 2 to 1 in favor of making web sites post a message that basically states that the website does not conduct background checks on anyone using the web site. The bill was sent to the Senate in February of 2006.

True.com is one website that already offers background checks on their clients. Some of the larger websites will no doubt follow suit over time as a means of differentiating themselves in the marketplace. However, the online dating industry has concerns about conducting criminal background checks because they feel these checks may create a false sense of safety by their users, as some criminals are bound to slip through the cracks. Legislation is still pending in most states.

IMBRA (International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005)

The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) was enacted by Congress and signed into law. It will go into effect on April 1, 2006.

The law requires mandatory criminal and marital background checks be performed on each American man, and that each foreign woman must receive and approve of this information before her email address can be released.

This legislation goes far beyond the legislation proposed by True.com that requires that online dating sites either do background checks or publish on their home pages, in large letters, that they do not perform these checks. IMBRA makes these checks mandatory.

If you own a dating website that does not specialize in foreign women meeting American men, you can relax, for now. IMBRA doesn't affect you immediately. But this is just the first step in a very strong push nationally to mandate that all dating companies, including dating websites, require these expensive background checks.

It is interesting to note that the giant online dating websites in the U.S. did not fight this legislation, since they were able to place an exception for them into the bill.

Match. com says background checks would add $10 to $15 to the cost of its three month membership.

In 2001, 1.6 million people subscribed to an online dating site, says Andrew Peach, research director for Jupiter Research, an Internet market research company in New York City. By 2004, there were 4.7 Million subscribers.

Friendfinder.com offers members the ability to have their online profiles certified as accurate, at no cost to the member, and yet very few members avail themselves of this free service.