Dating site age verification gone wrong
Here’s a seemingly rather shocking case: an American man dating on a sex site met up and slept with a girl whose profile said she was 18, only to discover later (when police surrounded his house) that he’d slept with a 14 year old girl.
Said guy sued said site for damages and lost, which I’m sure will warm the heart of every site owner out there.
I know from experience how hard (read: impossible) it is to prevent people from lying about their age on sites. The girl would have had to borrow her parents’ credit card to sign up to the site, as well as lie about her age. If someone is willing to lie and steal to place a profile on your site, there is very little you can do, unless you start doing serious background checks (and those have already been proven to be somewhat pointless). It’s usually much easier to tell in person whether someone is 14 or 18.
While I feel sorry for the guy and don’t think he should have necessarily received such a heavy penalty, I’m happy to see the law recognising the fact that the site itself is not responsible. The only thing I would say is that maybe the bit in the T&C about not being able to 100% guarantee the information provided by members is accurate should be made a bit clearer, rather than (probably) being hidden somewhere half way down the list. Really, though, a bit of personal responsibility should be factored into any dating experience.
Opinions?
Add comment August 30th, 2007