They take money from companies who are phishing for private data

This hookup app knows it is infected with bots and fake profiles, because they take money from companies who are phishing for private data and also developing AI programs dealing with human interactions.

STI Dating Apps

People Have Mixed Feelings About STI Dating Apps

At the end of July, Alyssa Parton, 22, received a call from her doctor. She had tested positive for both oral and genital herpes simplex virus. “I did not go to work that day,” she said. “I just cried.”

Parton wasn’t sure what it meant for her future. She is still in college, and wanted the chance to settle into a relationship and fall in love. “I thought my sex life was over,” she said.

Lying in her bed, Parton began searching for answers online. Her doctor hadn’t said much. On Facebook, she found a herpes support group and joined it. She watched a TED Talk by sex positivity and STI advocate Ella Dawson. And in her hunt, she came across Positive Singles, a site that advertised itself as the “world’s largest confidential herpes & STD dating & support community.”

Parton clicked on the site. The banner image was emblazoned with a photo of happy couples sitting by a lake. On her phone, she downloaded the app and made herself a profile. A mantra popped up onscreen. “Stay positive,” it read. What kind of catchphrase is that, she thought. Stay positive?

Genital herpes has always been a common diagnosis — about 16% of adults worldwide have genital herpes, and many do not realize they have it at all. (About half of all US adults have oral herpes caused by the virus HSV-1, which can cause painful mouth blisters or cold sores; genital herpes can be caused by either HSV-1 or HSV-2.)

But despite how ubiquitous the virus is, the stigma against herpes obscures the facts about it. Unlike chlamydia, gonorrhea, HPV, or other sexually transmitted infections, herpes doesn’t usually have serious health consequences in nonpregnant, healthy people, and medication can control outbreaks. STI panels don’t even routinely screen for herpes due to the risk of false positives or negatives.

However, the ignorance around it is still prevalent, so STI-focused dating apps offer an alternative solution to potential judgment from strangers. There are a number of sites to choose from: H Date, HSV Singles, Meet Positives, Meet People With Herpes. Positive Singles is one of the most popular dating platforms (there’s a site and an app) for people with herpes, as well as other sexually transmitted infections like HIV and chlamydia.

Alina, 25, also downloaded Positive Singles shortly after being diagnosed with herpes in 2019. She said she was attracted to the idea of finding a community that could empathize with her struggles. “But it never felt entirely like the most legit or safe app that I’ve ever used,” she said.

Successful Match, a dating company that owns niche dating sites like MillionaireMatch, InterracialMatch, SeniorMatch, and competitor site Meet People With Herpes, created Positive Singles in 2001. It boasts over 2.37 million users, according to its website, but it’s experienced increased scrutiny over the years. In 2014, Successful Match paid out $16.5 million in a settlement from a class action lawsuit after users accused the company of sharing private data with third parties from a centralized database, including users’ diagnoses. (In an email to BuzzFeed News, a spokesperson for Positive Singles said, “The parties agreed as part of the settlement that there was no admission of any wrongdoing by PositiveSingles.com. PositiveSingles.com has always asserted that it takes appropriate measures to protect its members’ personal data.”)

Parton was only on the app for a month before deleting it. She said she felt the premise of an STI-specific dating app bred a particularly “aggressive” culture, shrouded in shame. “There are a lot of profiles where people do post their faces,” she said. “But there are a bunch where they don’t.” One man messaged her 25 times in a row, even though Parton never opened any of the texts. She received several unsolicited pictures of strangers’ genitalia without any prior conversation. – Source