In December 2023, the dating platform Bumble introduced so-called AI Icebreakers to the “Bumble for Friends” section of the app. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the feature is designed to help you start a conversation by providing an AI-generated message. In order to do this, your personal profile information is fed into the AI system without Bumble ever obtaining your consent. Although the company repeatedly shows you a banner designed to nudge you into clicking “Okay”, which suggests that it relies on user consent, it actually claims to have a so-called “legitimate interest” to use data. noyb has therefore filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority.
Bumble was my last straw for dating apps a few years back. I paid for a the premium service for a few months, then i started dating a girl so i cancelled it. I even had an email notification and everything saying it was cancelled. Four months later i was still getting charged, and they had zero customer service contact info to try and dispute it. So i called up my bank and disputed the charges, forwarded on the cancellation email, and then got a full refund from the bank.
Fuck dating apps. They profit off the misery and loneliness of people and have every incentive to keep you single and miserable.
On a lot of then you mysteriously start getting likes and matches when you start using them less or your premium is about to run out or just ran out.
It’s almost as if when the profit is in having paying users then keeping people on the platform is the optimal working app not the one where you date and successfully leave.