6 Plaintiffs Sue Match Group Over Platform's 'Addictive' Premium Gaming Features

Online dating company Match Group uses “powerful technologies and hidden algorithms” to design its websites with “addictive, game-like design features” that “lock users into a perpetual pay-to-play loop,” alleged six plaintiffs in a class action Wednesday (docket 3:24-cv-00888) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

That loop “prioritizes corporate profits over its marketing promises and customers’ relationship goals,” said the complaint. Though Match’s Tinder, Hinge and The League dating platforms “have altered social reality,” allowing a user to “engage with a hundred potential partners in person in a matter of minutes,” that convenience “comes at a price,” it said.

The “addictive design” of Match’s platforms isn’t disclosed to users, said the complaint. The company instead represents the platforms as “effective tools for establishing off-app relationships while secretly doing everything in its power to capture and sustain paying subscribers and keep them on-app,” it said. The “undisclosed defective design” is intended to control users’ ability to disengage from the platforms and “turn users into addicts who will purchase ever-more expensive subscriptions to unlock unlimited and other ‘special’ features” that aren’t designed to deliver on Match’s marketing promises but rather to "entrench users in the app,” it said.

Match’s business model depends on generating returns “through the monopolization of users’ attention,” the complaint said. Match has “guaranteed its market success by fomenting dating app addiction that drives expensive subscriptions and perpetual use,” and it uses “recognized dopamine-manipulating product features” to gamify the platforms and “transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards,” it said. It makes the reward “elusive on purpose” to ensure users will buy subscriptions, the complaint said.

The defendant manipulates users by “inserting an artificial bottleneck and using a secret algorithm it designed to encourage and reward compulsive use,” the complaint said. It makes false promises to consumers “to keep their guard against compulsive use down, while pressuring them into investing additional time and money” into the platforms, without disclosing “the harmful addictive use and attendant health risks” it designed the platforms to realize for financial gain, it said.

Three of the six plaintiffs are residents of California. Burak Oksayan, a San Francisco resident, bought a monthly Tinder Gold membership in September for $19.99 and a platinum upgrade in November for $24.99, said the complaint. Jack Kessler of Los Angeles bought a Hinge quarterly subscription in February 2023 for $59.99 per quarter and renewed it in August and again in November. He also bought a one-month subscription to Tinder Platinum on March 4 for $19.99, renewed at the lower Tinder Gold tier on May 7 for $14.99, and downgraded his subscription to Tinder Plus on July 12 for $9.99, it said.

Andrew St. George, also of Los Angeles, bought several “roses” through Hinge for $3.99 per unit from September 2022 to May 2023, the complaint said. Jami Kandel of New York bought Tinder, Hinge, and The League monthly and/or quarterly subscriptions several times within the past two years, it said.

Bradford Schlosser of Fulton County, Georgia, bought a Hinge Preferred membership for $35 per month Dec.18, 2022, and upgraded his subscription to a $50 per month version Oct.14, the complaint said. He also purchased a one-month premium subscription to Tinder for $12.49 on Oct. 26, 2022, it said.

Andrew Karz of Pinellas County, Florida, bought a Tinder Premium subscription for $14.99 per month on Jan. 17, 2023, which he upgraded a month later to a $24.99 per month plan, the complaint said. Karz held the $24.99 monthly subscription from February to June 30. He also purchased a subscription on sale, for $18.98 on Nov. 15, 2023, then held the subscriptions and was charged the same price later that month and in December, it said.

When they bought their subscriptions, the plaintiffs relied on Match’s advertising claims that the subscriptions would increase their chances of establishing off-app relationships, thus improving the probability “that they would be freed from the Platforms,” the complaint said. The plaintiffs’ compulsive use wouldn’t have formed if they had been aware of how to engage in the platforms “responsibly” and had been told they were designed to be addictive, it said.

The plaintiffs' claims include violations of California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act and its False Advertising and Unfair Competition laws; New York General Business Law; the Georgia Deceptive Trade Practices Act; Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act; breach of express warranty; unjust enrichment; strict product liability and failure to warn; and negligence.

The plaintiffs seek orders requiring Match to cease and desist from selling the unlawful subscriptions in violation of law; enjoining it from continuing to advertise and sell subscriptions in the matter described; and requiring it to engage an ad campaign to “dispel the public misperception of the Platforms resulting from Defendant’s unlawful conduct,” the complaint said. They seek awards of damages, restitution, and/or disgorgement, attorneys’ fees and costs, and pre- and post-judgment interest.

A Match spokesperson emailed Friday: "This lawsuit is ridiculous and has zero merit. Our business model is not based on advertising or engagement metrics. We actively strive to get people on dates every day and off our apps. Anyone who states anything else doesn't understand the purpose and mission of our entire industry."