Subscription Site Insider is running an exclusive, new webinar next Tuesday May 15th 2012  starring attorney Lisa Dubrow:
She’ll cover:
-  What a recent court ruling against WallStreetJournal means.
-  New FTC regulations regarding data, email opt-ins and privacy.
-  Why sites shouldn’t say transactions are “safe and secure”.
-  How privacy laws affect teen-aged customers.
-  Why sites may no longer be able to share attendee contacts with event or webinar sponsors.

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Reebok to Pay USD25 Million in Customer Refunds To Settle Federal Trade Commission Charges of Deceptive Advertising of EasyTone and RunTone Shoes
Settlement Order Prohibits Reebok from Making Unsupported Claims that “Toning Shoes” Strengthen, Tone Muscles

In its ongoing effort to stem overhyped advertising claims, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Reebok International Ltd. has agreed to resolve charges that the company deceptively advertised “toning shoes” which it claimed would provide extra tone and strength to leg and buttock muscles.  Reebok will pay USD25 million as part of the settlement agreement.  The funds will be made available for consumer refunds either directly from the FTC or through a court-approved class action lawsuit.   Consumers who bought Reebok toning shoes or toning apparel can submit a claim.

 (eHarmony should be next. Can you guess who had denounced eHarmony? …………… Their consumers of course!)

Mr. Verba, eHarmony Inc.’ s CEO will be 9 months in his tenure this 11th May.
9 months, the same a normal pregnancy lasts.

Mr. Verba was never interviewed or never talked in public about eHarmony Inc.’s plans, its long term strategy.

In these 9 months he should had launched a new site with a new matching algorithm to replace eHarmony, 12+ years old & obsolete site, performing as placebo, but he failed.

During his tenure eHarmony Japan was dead before launchment, Jazzed collapsed, eHarmony’s sites loosing traffic.
He also tried to sell eHarmony Inc’s properties to biggest competitor, IAC, owner of Match, Chemistry, OkCupid, Singlesnet, Meetic and others, but failed.

He had been failing since he became the CEO.

Is Verba going to resign soon? Who knows?

For the first time ever, eHarmony informs its customers that they changed their terms and conditions of business. In the past two days, several members (not all of them) received an advisory email from eHarmony with a summary of the changes last April 25. Honestly I am stupefied!

Click here for the exact changes to the policy (pdf, 366kb).

While eHarmony did send its members a SUMMARY of the changes, they did not disclose what the exact changes were, what lines or sections were added and what sections were removed. The email also presumed their members would know better. Of course they don’t.

Here is the advisory email:

Dear eHarmony Blog,

You may have noticed that we recently changed our Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy. We know that reading Terms and Policies isn’t at the top of your to-do list, but we do want to provide you with a summary of the important revisions to the terms of our service.

Deletion of Personal Information. We have added language to our Privacy Policy to clarify that you absolutely have the right to request removal of your personal information from our database after you close your account.

Social Media and Mobile. Technology and the Internet are becoming even more integrated into our lives. That means we at eHarmony must continue to develop our services in a manner that enables our members to take full advantage of some of the benefits connecting with your social networks offers. For example, our current Facebook Connect feature allows importing your own Facebook photos to your eHarmony profile photos and seeing common connections with your match, should both of you choose to use the Facebook Connect feature. Our goal in all such projects is to give our members more relevant options and features. Also, we continue to make our service available on mobile devices and strive to make that experience as dynamic as possible. Our data collection and data sharing policies related to the above appear in the Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy.

‘Old Matches’. We have added a disclosure that allows us to remove very old, unopened matches from the My Matches page. This change will allow for a faster loading of the ‘My Matches’ page and will likely only affect a small number of our current users. Don’t worry. This will not affect matches with whom you are communicating.

Arbitration. We have added an arbitration provision to the Terms and Conditions of Service and removed the California law and venue requirements. The arbitration provision contains detailed information about your rights and the arbitration procedure. Under its terms, you and eHarmony agree to have disputes settled by a neutral arbitrator from a non-profit organization not affiliated with eHarmony. This arbitration provision goes into effect immediately except for current subscribers on eHarmony, for whom this will become effective upon renewing or extending your subscription, or re-subscribing to eHarmony at a later date.

Other. We have made other minor changes to the Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy. Please review them in their entirety for the full disclosures. You can always find the most recent version of these policies on the bottom of our home page and other areas of the website.

We welcome any comment or questions you may have about these changes.

Sincerely,
eHarmony Customer Care

“We have updated our terms and policies

You may have noticed that we recently changed our Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy. We know that reading Terms and Policies isn’t at the top of your to-do list, but we do want to provide you with a summary of the important revisions to the terms of our service.

Deletion of Personal Information.  We have added language to our Privacy Policy to clarify that you absolutely have the right to request removal of your personal information from our database after you close your account.

Social Media and Mobile.  Technology and the Internet are becoming even more integrated into our lives. That means we at eHarmony must continue to develop our services in a manner that enables our members to take full advantage of some of the benefits connecting with your social networks offers.  For example, our current Facebook Connect feature allows importing your own Facebook photos to your eHarmony profile photos and seeing common connections with your match, should both of you choose to use the Facebook Connect feature.  Our goal in all such projects is to give our members more relevant options and features.  Also, we continue to make our service available on mobile devices and strive to make that experience as dynamic as possible.  Our data collection and data sharing policies related to the above appear in the Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy.

‘Old Matches’.  We have added a disclosure that allows us to remove very old, unopened matches from the My Matches page.  This change will allow for a faster loading of the ‘My Matches’ page and will likely only affect a small number of our current users.  Don’t worry. This will not affect matches with whom you are communicating.

Arbitration.  We have added an arbitration provision to the Terms and Conditions of Service and removed the California law and venue requirements. The arbitration provision contains detailed information about your rights and the arbitration procedure.  Under its terms, you and eHarmony agree to have disputes settled by a neutral arbitrator from a non-profit organization not affiliated with eHarmony.  This arbitration provision goes into effect immediately except for current subscribers on eHarmony, for whom this will become effective upon renewing or extending your subscription, or re-subscribing to eHarmony at a later date.

Other.  We have made other minor changes to the Terms and Conditions of Service and Privacy Policy.  Please review them in their entirety for the full disclosures.  You can always find the most recent version of these policies on the bottom of our home page and other areas of the website.

We welcome any comment or questions you may have about these changes.

Sincerely,
eHarmony Customer Care “

sudden drop in traffic rank (Alexa)

Some time ago, January 2009, the IAC (Match/Chemistry) had launched and closed a free dating site named DownToEarth (then rebranded to STiR and closed).
The owners of the free online dating site PlentyOfFish had launched by September 2010 a paid site called eVow and failed.

Jazzed, launched August 2010, the failed free social dating site from eHarmony

It is entirely free
It is social
It is intended to search
but failed

See also.
Revealed: the full extent of the Rocket clone empire

He was never interviewed or never talked in public about eHarmony Inc.’s plans, its long term strategy.

In these 8 months he should had launched a new site with a new matching algorithm to replace eHarmony, 12+ years old & obsolete site, performing as placebo, but he failed.

Is Verba going to resign soon? Who knows?

Full article at Internet Dating Science.

The Online Dating Industry needs Innovations, but the innovations the Online Dating Industry needs will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.
Only 3 major discoveries can help to revolutionize the online dating industry.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users. “Only short-term but not long-term partner preferences tend to vary with the menstrual cycle”
II) People often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life. (FORGET Behavioural recommender systems or other system that learns your preferences)
III) What is important in attracting people to one another may not be important in making couples happy. Compatibility is all about a high level on personality similarity between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.

Personality Based Recommender Systems are the next generation of recommender systems because they perform FAR better than Behavioural ones (past actions and pattern of personal preferences)
That is the only way to improve recommender systems, to include the personality traits of their users.

“From: FERNANDO ARDENGHI <ardenghifer@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 6:03 PM
Subject: again eHarmony’s secret sauce does not exist.
To: bteraoka@eharmony.com, ggonzaga@eharmony.com, steve.carter@eharmony.com, elee@eharmony.com, busdev@eharmony.com
Cc: JVerba@eharmony.com, Jeremy.Verba@eharmony.com, IACInvestorRelations@iac.com, IAC IAC <communications@iac.com>, IACCorporateCommunications@iac.com, busdev@match.com

”

Can you guess who had been denouncing eHarmony Inc.’s sites for fraud in several Consumers’ Associations worldwide?

Instead of innovating with a new site and the normative personality 16PF5 test, eHarmony Inc. patched its 12 years old & obsolete site adding some questions to its old Questionnaire.

Remember eHarmony claims 12 million members.

Please see screenshots attached as proof.

eHarmony is nearly a 12 years old & obsolete site, and a HOAX with any scientific proof.
eHarmony Inc. which owns eHarmony, Jazzed, some % of eDarling and BetterDate, instead of innovating, patched that obsolete site with the “new” features:
Questions
and
a BIG change to the matching page experience

Chemistry is nearly a 7 years old & obsolete site, and a HOAX based solely on an ipsative proprietary personality test developed by Dr. Helen Fisher during 2005.
The IAC (InterActive Corporation) which owns Chemistry, Okcupid, Match and other sites, instead of innovating, patched that obsolete site with the new stream feature.

The Online Dating Industry needs Innovations!!! But innovations are not adding more bells and whistles to actual online dating sites. Or launching new ones with the same stupidities as the old ones.
Only 3 major discoveries can help to revolutionize the online dating industry.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users. “Only short-term but not long-term partner preferences tend to vary with the menstrual cycle”
II) People often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life. (FORGET Behavioural recommender systems or other system that learns your preferences)
III) What is important in attracting people to one another may not be important in making couples happy. Compatibility is all about a high level on personality similarity between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.

I used Google translate tool and it says “99.7% of eHarmony’s members will not be introduced to you“, i.e. only 0.3% of members will be shown as a compatible partner for you; that is the power of eHarmony’s matching algorithm (the effectiveness/efficiency of the matching algorithm.)

0.3% means:
3 persons per 1,000 persons screened.
or
30 persons per 10,000 persons screened.
or
300 persons per 100,000 persons screened.
or
3,000 persons per 1,000,000 persons screened.
or
30,000 persons per 10,000,000 persons screened.

30,000 persons per 10,000,000 persons screened is the population of a small city!!!
(eHarmony claimed 12 million persons/profiles in its database as for 2012)

There is also a comic about that situation: “Zack Hill’s mom joins eHarmony”
Lois: Are you telling me that out of all these guys, you didn’t like one?
Jan: I did not.
Lois: This is like the phone directory for a small town!
Jan: The town of LoserVille.

Yes, you think well, the “secret sauce” is empty, the algorithm is performing as placebo, as a machine gun shooting flowers.

eHarmony Japan uses a 5 step questionnaire which is similar to eHarmony Canadian, U.S., U.K., Australian and Brazilian sites, also eDarling sites operating in 12 countries; they use the Big 5 to assess personality of daters.
Step #1 Basic information. (8% of the whole questionnaire)
Step #2 Self-introduction including personality traits assessment.  (45% of the whole questionnaire)
Step #3 Values and Attitudes in Human Relationships.  (21% of the whole questionnaire)
Step #4 Interests and Skills.  (20% of the whole questionnaire)
Step #5 Your Ideal Match.  (6% of the whole questionnaire)

Since several years ago I had been saying:
Actual online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods are only fueled by big marketing budgets and not by serious scientific evidence. No one ( eHarmony/eDarling, Chemistry, PerfectMatch, PlentyOfFish Chemistry Predictor, MeeticAffinity, Be2, RewardingLove, Parship, True, etc) can prove its matching algorithm can match prospective partners who will have more stable and satisfying relationships than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one’s own, or other technique as the control group in a peer_reviewed Scientific Paper. They are all like placebo, because
* Actual online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods, when calculating compatibility between prospective mates, have less or at least the same precision as searching on one’s own. [in the range of 3 or 4 persons compatible per 1,000 persons screened]
* That is because they use:
a) simplified versions of personality traits, instead of the 16PF5 or similar with the complete inventory (16 variables)
b) inadequate quantitative methods to calculate compatibility between prospective mates, like eHarmony which uses Dyadic Adjustment Scale or other sites which use multivariate linear / logistic regression equations o other equations.

Latest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development shows: compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.

I had reviewed over 55 compatibility matching engines intended for serious dating since 2003, when I had discovered “the online dating sound barrier” problem.

Breaking “the online dating sound barrier” is to achieve at least:
3 most compatible persons in a 100,000 persons database.
12 most compatible persons in a 1,000,000 persons database.
48 most compatible persons in a 10,000,000 persons database.
100 times better than Compatibility Matching Algorithms used by actual online dating sites!

The only way to achieve that is:
- using the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5.
The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9
- expressing compatibility with eight decimals, like The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92.55033557% +/- 0.00000001% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
Using a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation) to calculate similarity between prospective mates.

That is the only way to revolutionize the Online Dating Industry.

All other proposals are ………….. NOISE

I thought eHarmony Japan was aborted and the Japanese team fired last November 2011, but the 3 months free trial screen says until 31st March 2012.
The older screenshot said until December 31st 2011.
It is not live yet, it seems eHarmony Inc. is trying to resurrect eHarmony Japan.
The Japanese will need to use their Visa credit cards to prove they are over 18 years old.
They can also add certificates for ID verification purposes.
Online Dating in Japan is not as “relaxed” as Online Dating in other countries.
How much money eHarmony Inc. had invested in developing the site for the Japanese? Who knows?
http://www.eharmony.co.jp/singles/servlet/support/
eHarmony Japan, live soon or not? or is it only a bluff to sell eHarmony Inc. to IAC (Match, Chemistry and others) for USD 500 million?

eHarmony is like the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, useless at all to break the sound barrier.
The Russians had copycatted the B-29 and now they copycatted eHarmony, a 12 years old obsolete site.

The Tupolev Tu-4 (NATO reporting name: Bull) was a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid 1960s. It was a reverse-engineered copy of the U.S.-made Boeing B-29 Superfortress.