Match.com

The Match Group, which owns Match and about 45 other dating sites like Tinder, OK Cupid, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, owns about 25% of the dating app market share. When you sign up with one of these dating sites, the Match Group privacy policy states they may share your personal information with any of the other Match Groups sites for what they say are non-commercial limited and critical purposes. Match was sued by the FTC in the United States for allegedly using misleading ads and deceptive email marketing tactics to get hundreds of thousands of Match users to pay for their services. While not directly privacy related, this does raise some red flags for users. Match collects a huge amount of data--everything from what you say in your chats to religion, ethnicity, even what you eat, and how many pets you have. And then there is Lara, the AI chatbot dating coach designed to help you find love and tell you what to wear on dates. Lara isn't the only AI Match uses to play online matchmaker. Match started using an algorithm back in 2010 to rate users based on their preferences. Without a lot of transparency into the algorithm, one concern when apps collect this information is it's hard to know how you might be matched and whether the apps have any potential bias. Finally, when you connect a social media account like Facebook to Match, both Facebook and the Match now potentially collect more information together. That's why we recommend users don't link your dating app to Facebook.