Privacy an issue with dating sites

Apple Inc and Google Inc are trying to reassure iPhone and Android handset users they aren’t tracking their locations. Online dating companies are betting their bottom lines on doing just that.

Meetic SA, the French owner of the European operations of Match.com, is joining start-ups including New York-based MeetMoi LLC in offering location-based dating services. Meetic will introduce features this year that let handset users find out real-time who’s around them and interested in meeting, and match potential soulmates who, for example, frequent the same gym, Managing Director Philippe Chainieux said.

Taking advantage of smartphones’ location data is a logical step for dating services, whose users are increasingly accessing their matches from handsets. The number of European Web users visiting a dating service “almost every day” through a mobile device rose 49 per cent between February 2010 and the same month this year to 2.8 million, according to researcher comScore Inc. The number doing so at least once a week climbed 44 per cent.

“As soon as mobile services are made available, uptake is usually faster than on the traditional Internet,” said Luca Benini, vice president and commercial director for comScore in Europe. “You can expect that everything that can be geo-localised will be eventually.”

The boom in mobile dating coincides with increased regulatory scrutiny of location data on smartphones. Germany, France and Italy said last month they are checking whether Apple’s iPhone and iPad products violate privacy rules by tracking, storing and sharing data about users’ locations. Cupertino, California-based Apple said it isn’t tracking users’ locations and plans to cut the amount of data the iPhone stores.

Location-based iPhone and Android app FlirtMaps topped 500,000 downloads last month, with that figure expected to double by the end of the year, according to Marco Franciosa, the chief technology officer of parent Zodiak Active. Grindr, a location-based app for gay men that started operations in 2009, boasts 62,000 users in London alone, according to its website.