totally unethical, i agree. the part about the investment really surprised me. do investors have a responsibility to study the legality of that which they are supporting with their capital?
It's complex, especially when there are multiple jurisdictions involved, the laws on these subjects tend to vary from place to place. Another complication is that (like many things during dd) this straddles the line between technology on the one side and legal on the other.
If I were to come across it during a dd I'd flag legal to take an in-depth look. (Regardless of it being un-ethical.)
Don't be surprised if to the parties investing this was not a red flag and they invested anyway, also don't be surprised if they simply were ignorant of the matter due to time pressure or unfamiliarity with the territory. Not all investments are done after a full process dd.
The bigger surprise to me is that investors would want to fund a dating site - period. The dating site business is somewhat known for being hard to attract investors because of their churn problem due to losing two customers whenever there is a successful match.
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/highlight#/entity
Perhaps, but we all know there is plenty of money to be had for a company that toes the line in terms of legality. "This may be illegal" is not the same as it being so.