Obvious question
How does this stand up to anti age discrimination legislation, e.g. the Equality Acts here in the UK?
Hookup app Tinder has launched a premium service charging older users more dosh to mingle with potential mates still in their prime. The new Tinder Plus app will allow users new features including looking up previously-rejected matches and checking out potential partners in other cities. Dubbed "Passport", the location …
In the UK, under the Age Discrimination Act of 2010 I believe it is illegal to discriminate on grounds of age in the provision of goods and services. I do not know of any test cases however.
Similar legislation forbidding discrimination on grounds of religion or sexuality has been successfully tested so it would be likely that Tinder is on very shaky legal ground here. It probably won't matter though as the real hit on Tinder will come when their users bugger off to pastures new.
Not true since October 2012 - although the legislation is fairly toothless and the particular instance here is allowable - as long as they phrase it in the form of an age-based concession, rather than a surcharge on the elders. See para 4 of The Equality Act 2010 (Age Exceptions) Order 2012.
My first thought too, on reading the headline.
And older people have more cash to splash? Hmm, young and free versus divorced, 2 kids and having to pay maintenance, yeah, that works. /sarcasm.
I expect the swinger app pusher to get a bit of a backlash in the next couple of days. Ooh, er Matron!
No one in my class qualifies for a YPRC, but we all have "student cards".
Age discrimination is not permitted, in the same way as charging men to enter a club is not permitted (in the UK), although we know it goes on. Playing tacky music scares most drinkers away...
Senior discounts are provided because they will often have "bus pass" or similar. Here in the USA there is often discounts in restaurants or grocery stores.
We live in a society of labels so that the general population can be bigoted from a distance.
How is Tinder anything other than a voyeur app?
P.
Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:
Non-discrimination
1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
...........
This doesn't actually creates freestanding duties or powers for Member States, but a) applies when Member States are applying EU law, and b) reflects existing EU caselaw: non-discrimination between private parties in economic relationships is at the core of such EU law caselaw, have a look at e.g. Defrenne v Sabena or Kukukdeveci or Stauder. I think the Commission would be the ones who would take it forward because it involves transnational issues, which consumers can't afford to litigate (and anyway there's no money in consumer law). Although anyone who's done conflict of laws may correct me here.
There was a website called FaceParty (remember them?) who did a similar thing years ago, by deleting the accounts of everyone aged over 35.
I can't imagine any self-respecting over-30 to want to pay hundreds of pounds a year for a hot-or-not swipe app...
I wasn't talking about school. Children shouldn't be using online dating.
But university and your twenties is the time when people are not yet married and tied down by children, so are able to socialise far more easily. Once you get to 30, your peers start staying in with the spouse and kid even if you don't. If you exit a serious relationship, you may know barely anybody who isn't part of your "smug marrieds" friendship group.
I actually thought the bulk of the online dating market WAS 30 and over, but I don't know where I got that idea from!
> I wasn't talking about school. Children shouldn't be using online dating.
School is (from memory) 12 to 18 or 19, depending on the country. Age of consent in Europe varies between 13 and 16 (perhaps 17 even?), and in practise sexual activity starts around 14-16.
With this in mind, and it is not clear what you mean by "children", but why should people of dating age not be using online dating specifically?
OKCupid, also owned by match.com (as tinder are too), runs age based pricing for premium membership. Fortunately you can reduce your age, buy the membership more cheaply, then raise your age again..
Tinder is a waste of time, anyway. Even if you're within standard cookie cutter dating parameters (young, single, monogamous, straight and want to have children eventually) its insistence on not having a home location for each person and instead matching on where someone was five days ago makes it utterly useless. Gave up on it very quickly as a total waste of time.
The only dating website/app I would consider is Plenty of Fish, not to be confused with Plenty More Fish.
It's completely free, although there is a small optional monthly fee which gives you some extra goodies, you don't need to pay it. It has the look and feel of NOT being run by some big corporation.
Having said that, I know someone close to my own (middle) age who has met a very nice lady on Tinder, so it can work.
An interesting element of this move is what it says about Tinder's target userbase. To use Tinder you have to be on Facebook (that is where it gets your login, profile and pictures and some semblance of an idea that you might be real). As Facebook becomes more for the slightly older (non-yoof) population then Tinder's available target audience starts to decline. So maybe they will have to move away from Facebook.
Yes, I have been to the news agent. If I left a copy of a newspaper open to a picture of someone's arse on a work desk in any normal office I would also consider it NSFW. I am not personally offended by the picture, but that's not what makes something unsafe for work, it's the impression it gives to colleagues and coworkers. I would prefer my colleagues don't get the impression that I'm browsing pictures of arses during working hours if that's OK with you Juan?
> I would prefer my colleagues don't get the impression that I'm browsing pictures of arses during working hours if that's OK with you Juan?
How about not reading El Reg during work hours then? Perhaps your colleagues would appreciate more that you be doing some actual work? Just an idea.
Instead of basing the subscription purely on age, weight subscription renewals based on the age differential between the user and the average age of the person they swipe right.
Depending on the age of the user, it could be called the pervy-old-git or the gold-digger tax.