Comment by macrael | Hacker News Reader

Comment by macrael | Hacker News Reader

> Match than demands that we enter into a confidential agreement where we show them how we are able to generate more relationships and dates than they do, and how we got so much bigger along with a lot of other things they want to know.

If you read the letter Match.com sent to him, you will see that he is misrepresenting it here. All they ask him for is proof that the claims he is making are true.

From Match.com: > We demand that you immediately cease and desist from making these false claims. If your position is that these claims are substantiated, please promptly provide me with substantiation for each of these claims...If disclosing the substantiation data concerns you, Match.com is open to entering into a confidentiality agreement.

I don't know why Match.com would be the people to follow up on a possible false advertising claim like this. I assume they could sue plentyoffish if they don't provide Match with evidence? As plentyoffish points out, it is likely that Match.com (also?) makes false claims, so this could definitely be bluster. But they definitely don't ask for plentyoffish to reveal their processes.

Oh, but you left out the best part of the whole letter! You know, the part where their general counsel says:

    Based on *my* knowledge of the industry, these claims cannot be supported.... [emphasis added]

Because, as we all know, being general counsel of a dating site means you know all about things like how many relationships a dating site with X members can theoretically generate, and such.

In any case, this is just meaningless legal posturing. In the United States, where anyone can bring suit against any private entity for any reason whatsoever, a C&D letter from a competitor like this would barely register on my radar screen if I were one of the people at plentyoffish who's paid to worry about such things. Judging by the last sentence of his post, that seems like exactly what the post author is going to do about it.

FYI plentyoffish is basically a one man show. And he claims to be doing it part time.

A large part of that is that he hasn't really updated the site in ages. It's basically coasting, as far as I (or anyone I know) has been able to tell. That it can make that much money without adding 'new and exciting features' is impressive.

This guy Craig runs a list with a similar strategy...

The absence of a button is a feature.

The absence of a button may be a feature, but terrible UI design is not.

I disagree. Terrible design can be ugly, but also a feature. For instance, the squished pictures may be driving profile views (people click to see the unsquished picture).

Isn't is a four man show now (him + GF + 2 employees)?

Something like that. But the other 3 just handle customer service. He does everything else.

To the best of my knowledge (and IANAL...), Match has no standing in this regard, and therefore is in no position to be making any demands. Match is not the FTC (or Canadian equivalent).

I'm no lawyer, either (nor am I ANAL), but I think you're correct. In addition, I believe the FTC only really has jurisdiction to intervene here if it believes actual consumers are being harmed by plentyoffish making the claims they are. Since it's a free site, it seems unlikely anyone's being harmed by anything plentyoffish is doing, except possibly for some wasted time. And, in this respect, I'm sure plentyoffish is no worse than a lot of other time-waster web sites.

I can't see how Match.com could possibly defend their case in court if they tried to sue. They'd essentially be asking a competing firm to reveal their trade secrets.

Again, it really doesn't look like they are doing that at all. They are just asking them to prove their marketing claims. My guess (IANANANAL) is that Match could sue for false advertising charges? Or bring evidence to the FTC? Dunno. But they aren't asking for their trade secrets.

False advertising is illegal.

True, but the burdon of proof is on the prosecution. If they have proof, the they could sue, but this looks more like a flimsy attempt to gain information.

I believe there's some sort of legal precedent about coming to court with clean hands when you're bring up charges against another party. And Match would be flirting the line of hypocrisy if they want to talk about false advertising.

Even if they sue, it's Canada. You can only get actual damages (which you also have to prove), lawsuits in Canada aren't lotteries (like in the US).

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