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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

I'm reasonably certain the UK's age discrimination legislation under the Equality Act 2010 could be used to take Tinder to court for this. Basically, it's illegal to charge people more simply because of how old they are.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/your-rights/equal-rights/...

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Serious questions: Can they give people discounts based on how old they are? Can they give student discounts? Is there a legal line between giving discounts/charging less vs charging more?

Senior discounts (55+) are quite popular in the USA, although I don't hear young people complaining.

They should be, considering how much baby boomers have screwed over subsequent generations economically.

Senior discounts are based on the assumption that this age group is likely to be formed by people who are retired. Similarly, student discounts are intended for full time students that don't have the "expected" source of income that is having a job. I guess Tinder would be ok if they offered student discounts (or senior discounts ;) ). The issue here is whether they can charge 27 year old professionals a different rate than say 30 year old professionals.

That is not a discount for people without a steady source of income. That is potentially a deliberate attempt to skew the demographics of their user base towards younger users (although less of an issue that it would otherwise be, since Tinder without-premium-features remains free to use for 18 year olds, 40 year olds and 109 year olds).

> That is potentially a deliberate attempt to skew the demographics of their user base towards younger users

Or maybe those over 28 are willing to pay more, and this is a move to maximize revenue.

> Or maybe those over 28 are willing to pay more, and this is a move to maximize revenue.

This does happen to be the motivation that Tinder stated.

> Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained and need a lower price to pull the trigger."

Student discounts aren't age based, a pensioner can enrol as a student and get a student discount card, it's dependent on being a student, it's not related to age.

Charging less because someone is young would still be open to an age discrimination case, just as the opposite is true.

OK Cupid has been price discriminating for at least a year. Does anybody know if they do it in the UK?

http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/1nkdfx/

http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/28oeo6/

Some states in the the US also ban price discriminating based on sex or gender. For example, California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin. Does anybody know if OK Cupid price discriminates in the UK?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies%27_night

I'm not sure how well this might hold up... there are plenty of places that offer senior, military and under-12 discounts in pricing... It does kind of smack in the face as discriminatory based on a pretty non-traditional division in age.

If it's phrased as a concession to younger users, I'm not sure it would be illegal. Service isn't denied to older users, and the service is generally available to all age groups.

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