Keeping Your Privacy while Dating Online
It’s not easy finding someone special for yourself, whether in person or on the internet. In a world in which we all desperately labor towards the ideal goal of being neck-deep in sweltering romance, there is one thing that we tend to forget about when it comes to the process of online dating itself: your privacy. Or rather, a severe lack of it.
That’s because most dating apps and businesses rely on the information you provide them with when you create an account, update your profile, or quite simply have a chat. Almost any type of information you input into a dating application has most likely passed into at least another set of hands other than yours.
One of the reasons for why this is so predominantly done is because it is profitable. Using the personal data of users in order to sell targeted advertising has been an underhanded trick online businesses have been practicing ever since the advent of the internet.
If the application you’re using can identify the fact that you’re into extreme sports, then you’re far more likely to go through an ad that informs you about a discount on mountain bikes. This is one example out of a hundred.
We all want to have our privacy.
We all want to have the leisure of having our private conversations remain completely and utterly private. While the age-old response of, “What do you expect? Your information is all over the internet!” might ring true in certain situations, we nonetheless have to wonder where the line has to be drawn.
If very sensitive information that concerns our lives is at risk of being exposed, then we have all rights to be worried. A sad truth, for example, is the possibility of some losing their jobs or their livelihoods over something as trivial as specifying a sexual orientation their superior does not approve of on their dating profile — a situation which should never happen.
The data a dating site tracks heavily depends on the sort of platform you’re using. In general, the information considered most relevant to be sold is that of your gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political affiliation. One of the things dating applications also keep meticulous track of are the pictures and videos you’ve also shared with other people, remaining in their database for whatever nefarious use they have in mind.
“Why are you telling me all of this,” you might be asking. “Aren’t you an online dating business?”
One of the most important building blocks of the Noon Happen concept is dating without any hassle. To us, that means everything that concerns your online dating experience. We personally wouldn’t love an application that we know is selling our personal information — and with the close relationship we’re trying to establish here, how could we ever keep you from loving us?
The answer to your hypothetical questions might be corny — and let us know if it is — but the reason why we’re telling you all of this is because we care. Genuinely. The Noon Happen team isn’t an array of robots — we’re people who felt the need to provide the market with something more trustworthy, personal, and consistent than our competitors.
We don’t collect any of your sensitive, personal information. While you will be prompted to specify details like your sexual orientation simply so that our algorithm can help match you with the right people, our application does not keep track of irrelevant information and does not work in tandem with third parties.
Your truly personal information — such as your phone number, gender, sexual orientation, religion… is completely inaccessible to other users.
This also includes what you chat with other users.
Most dating applications are known to access your personal chat logs in order to gather information on how best to improve their service. However, we don’t believe in the end justifying the means. The conversations you have with your matches are very personal, and we’re going to make sure it remains that way.
The foremost lesson you should take from this article is the fact that, yes, big dating corporations almost assuredly make use of your personal information in ways you would definitely not be happy about. This is also going to happen for as long as people don’t care.
Our suggestion? Start caring. Start taking your data seriously! The only person who can ultimately determine how private your online life remains is you. Don’t reveal sensitive information to untrustworthy sources. You know what they say: pick your friends carefully! And get Noon Happen today on the App Store or Google Play!
