November 23, 2007

Can New Internet Dating Laws Protect Users?

Their intentions are good. No doubt about that. A new law (see CNN news post) is under consideration that will force internet dating sites to notify users whether they do criminal background checks.

Despite the good intentions, supposed to make internet dating safer, this law is inherently flawed right from conception.

Indeed, new legislation may just not be the answer to internet dating safety. Remember the CANN SPAM (if I have the term right) law that was supposed to protect us from the unsolicited email? Spam messages continue to bombard us daily, unabated.

And, with all due respect to the legislators, they may not be right type people to craft such a bill. I’ll bet you my bottom dollar that pretty few of them can tell you the difference between a dating site, a social networking site, and a chat room.

Ask anyone of those legislators what MySpace.com is and the response will probably be, “a dating site”. By the way, MySpace.com is a social networking site, not a dating site, for those who may not know.

Anyway, most internet dating horror stories emanate from free dating services, chat rooms and social networking services. There is a good reason predators choose these sites: they are FREE.

You see, a paid dating site requires the use of a credit card. A credit card leaves behind a paper trail. Unless it is a stolen one, no crook in his (it’s usually a he) right mind can use a credit card knowing that it could help get him caught.

And just how do they propose dealing with fake profiles? Predators are abominable creatures, but they sure aren’t stupid (at least not all of them). They often hide behind fake names and profiles. And of course fake names cannot be background verified.

Bill Ashworth of Yahoo! commented about the proposed bill, “Unreliable checks will provide a false sense of security”. I totally agree.

Any thoughts out there?

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