Why the Okcupid and Match Group Scandal Should Make You Delete Your Profile

The scandal that was kept quiet

March 2025 will be remembered for a long time in the online dating industry. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against OkCupid and its parent company, Match Group Americas. The nature of the allegations shocked even seasoned experts: one of the oldest dating services had been sharing the personal data of millions of users — photos, geolocation, sexual preferences — with a third-party company for several years without their consent. Not only that, but OkCupid tried to cover its tracks and obstruct the investigation.

To the average user, this sounds like the plot of a corporate espionage movie. But for those looking for relationships online, it’s a wake-up call: your profile might not be a way to find love, but a commodity being sold off at auction. Today, we’ll break down exactly what happened, why this affects everyone who uses Tinder, Bumble, or other Match Group apps, and how alternative dating formats — specifically, the video chat platform Bazoocam — address the privacy issue in a radically different way.

What exactly did OkCupid and Match Group do?

According to FTC documents, Match Group Americas (the owner of OkCupid, Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and other dating giants) created a system in which access to user data was wide open to internal partners. This goes far beyond the harmless sharing of statistics with advertisers. OkCupid shared with third parties specific photos that users uploaded to their profiles, their exact location data while using the app, as well as answers to sensitive questions about religion, politics, and sexual orientation.

What seems particularly cynical is the fact that OkCupid publicly declared its commitment to privacy. The user agreement contained clauses promising not to share personal data without explicit consent. As it turned out, the company interpreted “explicit consent” in its own way: simply clicking “Sign Up” was enough to be considered as having given permission for everything.

The consequences for ordinary people were catastrophic. Investigative journalists found evidence that some of the leaked photos ended up on deepfake pornography sites. Other data was used for targeted advertising of services the user might not have even considered (such as wedding loans for those searching for “serious relationships”). As part of a settlement agreement, the court ordered Match Group to pay a $20 million fine and to have its data processing monitored by an independent auditor for 20 years. But money won’t bring back the stolen photos or restore reputations.

Why your data is a gold mine for apps

To understand the scale of the problem, you need to look at the business model of most free dating apps. You don’t pay to download the app or for its basic features. That means they make money in other ways. There are two main methods:

Subscriptions (Tinder Gold, Bumble Boost) — but only 5–10% of users sign up for them.

Selling user data and advertising — the main source of revenue for OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and many others.

When you answer questions like “Do you like to travel?” or “What are your views on abortion?” “Is your ideal evening at home or at a club?”— algorithms build a psychological profile of you. This is far more valuable to marketers than just your online shopping history. By knowing your relationship status and sexual preferences, companies can show you ads for birth control, dating hotels, and relationship therapists.

The problem is that after a data breach (or direct sale), this information ends up in anyone’s hands. Scammers use it for “catfishing”— they create a fake profile that perfectly matches your preferences, lure you into sending money or intimate photos, and then blackmail you. The number of such cases has tripled over the past two years.

Bazoom Cam — a model where you can’t steal what isn’t there

Now imagine an alternative reality. You don’t fill out a profile, upload photos, or provide an address. You simply go to the Bazoocam or CooMeet.chat video chat site, click “Start”, and within a second, you see a real person on the other end. This is a radically different approach to dating. And it has a number of undeniable advantages in terms of privacy:

• No permanent profile. You don’t leave a digital footprint in the form of photos, answers to questions, or geolocation history. Every session starts with a clean slate.
• No link to your real identity. Bazoocam doesn’t require a phone number, email address, or Facebook or Google account. You’re as anonymous as you want to be.
• No database to hack. The service simply doesn’t have your personal data in the sense we’re used to. There are only technical logs of connection times, but they don’t contain your name, photo, or chat history.
• Live verification instead of biometric templates. Tinder is rolling out Face Check to compare your selfie with your profile photo. But that “face template” is also stored somewhere on a server. On Bazoom cam, you immediately see a real person — authenticity isn’t confirmed by a checkmark, but by the fact that they’re responding to your words right here and now.

Of course, video chats have their drawbacks (more random people, fewer filters). But when it comes to protecting against corporate espionage and data leaks, Bazoocam wins by a landslide. Your photos can’t be sold to advertisers because you simply haven’t uploaded them. Your secrets won’t surface online two years from now because you didn’t entrust them to anyone in text form.

Privacy as the New Currency

Following the OkCupid scandal, many users began deleting their profiles en masse. Analysts predict a rise in the popularity of niche services that make money not from data, but from subscriptions or voluntary donations. Video chat sites like Bazoocam are at the forefront of this trend. They remind us of an old truth: if the product is free, then you are the product.

Before signing up for the next trendy app, ask yourself two questions: “Am I okay with my photos and answers to personal questions being sold to who knows who?” and “Wouldn’t it be better to spend 15 minutes on a live video chat where no one is tracking or storing my data?” The future of dating lies in mindfulness. And Bazoocam gives you the tool to be mindful without the risk of waking up famous on a site with data leaks.