Tinder Gold offers smarter swiping at a price

“Tinder’s definitely not a game,” said Elie Seidman, the company’s chief executive, in a recent interview. “At the core, it’s about human connection.”

If you squint, though, the app doesn’t look so different from the countless mobile games on the market. Tinder has a clear objective and explicit rules. At any time of day, there are tens of millions of people playing, er, swiping, on the dating app. And, like the games with which it competes for screen time, Tinder charges users who want a leg up.

For example, in Clash of Clans, a mobile game in which you build and defend a village, you can use real money to buy “gems,” the basic currency of that game. On Tinder, you can buy extra “super likes” (which alert others that you are enamored of them) and “boosts” (which make your profile more visible to people in the area).

Or, to really increase your chances, you might subscribe to Tinder Gold for about $30 a month. (The price depends on multiple factors, including where you live and how many years you have walked the Earth searching for a partner.)

Tinder Gold grants users access to a feature called “Likes You,” which gives them a list of people who have swiped right on them. Suddenly, there’s no futile swiping whatsoever. Instead, you’ve got a (hopefully long) list of strangers with whom you’re guaranteed to match. It’s something like god mode, for a dating app.

“The structure of those in-app purchases are highly similar to the structure of in-app purchases for games, in that you have those special abilities,” said Randy Nelson, the head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower, an analytics firm. “A direct line can be drawn from the boosts and power-ups in a game to the boosts and power-ups in Tinder.”

Tinder has leveraged these to great effect since introducing Tinder Gold in 2017. It has become, according to Sensor Tower and App Annie, another analytics firm, the top-grossing nongaming app in the world.

And it’s only getting bigger: Tinder announced on Tuesday that it had added more than 500,000 subscribers worldwide in the last quarter, for a total of more than 5 million people paying for Tinder Gold or the less expensive Tinder Plus.

Back in 2015, according to Sensor Tower, the App Store’s top 10 grossing apps for the second quarter were all games. But in 2016, a subscription app, Spotify, entered the mix. In the second quarter of 2019, four nongaming apps — Tinder, Netflix, YouTube and Tencent Video — are in the top 10, along with games like Honor of Kings and Candy Crush Saga.

Tinder’s pricing structure splits the difference between those games and something like YouTube, whose premium package removes irritating advertisements and allows access to otherwise unavailable content.

Tinder is run by Match Group, the behemoth that owns most of the dating apps one might use, with the exception of Bumble. Another Match Group company, OkCupid, introduced Likes You as an option for paying customers starting in 2012. But Tinder’s founders were reluctant to incorporate it.

Gary Swidler, the chief financial officer of Match Group, said that “there was concern about breaking that core foundational principle of the double opt-in.”

The app’s current chief has no such qualms.

“They were mistaken,” Seidman said. (Several of the app’s founders, including Sean Rad, a former chief executive, are in a legal dispute with Match and its parent company, IAC.)

Most people think of Tinder as a free app, and it is free to most of its millions of users. Brent Thill, an analyst who covers the company for Jefferies Technology Group, said that Match Group overall had more than 80 million users. (The company does not release specific numbers for each app.)

Swidler said that roughly 70% of Tinder’s revenue comes from subscriptions; the other 30 percent comes from à la carte features, along with a small amount from advertising.

Some experts who had expressed doubt in Match Group have recently shifted gears. Goldman Sachs had advised investors to sell its stock in February, citing the likelihood of Tinder Gold subscribers ending their subscriptions and Facebook’s gearing up in the dating space. But in May, Goldman analysts adjusted their estimate, calling their previous view “myopic” in light of Match’s consistent subscriber growth.

That growth comes as Match Group continues to expand into new markets, building up its user base around the world.

“You get a huge advantage by getting a lot of free users,” Swidler said, explaining the company’s “product first, then monetization” strategy. Essentially, the larger the pool of people using Tinder, the more who might eventually pay for certain benefits. If they get frustrated enough.


2019 New York Times News Service

source: news.abs-cbn.com

US college bribery scandal grates on those who missed the cut

The U.S. college bribery scandal has unleashed angst and fury among parents, students and admissions experts, as an unprecedented criminal investigation draws attention to the privileges afforded to wealthy Americans.

Hollywood actors and business executives are among 50 people charged with taking part in the largest college admissions scandal in U.S. history, which involved getting students into elite, highly selective universities by paying bribes and cheating the admissions process.

Ordinary Americans were not amused.

"I've worked my butt off for four years trying to make myself seem really presentable, studying two hours a week for the SAT (entrance exam) and getting all As in my classes," said Connor Finn, 18, a senior at John Marshall High school in Los Angeles. "And then the fact that people would just pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and without the hard work is really not rewarding at all," he said.

Finn's father, Michael, said the teenager applied to a dozen universities, including University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where the daughter of one couple charged in the scandal was enrolled. Connor is still waiting for a response, his father said.

Dan Raffety, a college counselor at the Elgin Academy prep school near Chicago, said he had a student with superb grades, perfect entrance exam scores and a resume full of extracurricular activities who was denied entry at Georgetown.

He said he was angered to think academically deserving students may have lost a spot to cheaters.

ACCESS TO POWER

Besides academic excellence, elite schools offer access for their graduates to a network of people in power.

"At some point this isn't really about education. This is about trying to get access," Rafferty said.

Many elite universities give preference to "legacy" applicants: the children of those who previously attended. In other cases, major financial gifts, including multimillion-dollar donations to construct buildings on campus, pave the way for the privileged. Both practices are legal.

The competition can be fierce and seem unfair even to people of privilege, however.

One wealthy Massachusetts parent said his son had excellent credentials but still was denied entry to Ivy League Brown University, even after the family spent thousands of dollars for a tutor to improve the boy's entrance exam scores.

Meanwhile, he said students whom he considered lesser academic talents gained an advantage by going to private prep schools, whose business model is to get students into elite universities.

"It's a booming business because parents are the ripest target in the world. They'll pay and do anything for their kids. And this (scandal) is an example of things gone awry," said the father, who asked to remain anonymous so he could speak freely.

His son chose to stay in public school and ended up at Tufts University, a highly rated school that nonetheless lacks Ivy League cachet.

LOOKING FOR DIVERSITY, TOO

The top universities have such an excess of qualified applicants they could limit their candidates to the best students with perfect entrance exam scores, admissions experts say.

They are also looking for diversity, accepting high achieving poor and minority students who cannot afford tutors and coaches.

"This scandal, most people would agree, is ridiculous," said Natasha Kumar Warikoo, a graduate professor of education at Harvard and author of "The Diversity Bargain," which examines how students at elite universities view affirmative action.

"But beyond that we don't have a consensus in the United States about what fair is," she added.

UCLA student Sandy Situ, 21, the daughter of immigrants, said the scandal had made her think about the uphill battle for those who are unable to attend the schools of their choice.

"I think about the resources that were taken away from them, the chances that they could have achieved something better, all the people who were turned away for people who could just pay their way in," Situ said. "What a sad moment this is for America." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Rollo Ross; editing by Bill Tarrant and Rosalba O'Brien)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Biggest US college fraud bust nets actors Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin

BOSTON - Federal authorities arrested dozens on Tuesday for a $25 million scheme to help wealthy Americans, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and some CEOs, cheat their children's way into elite universities, such as Yale and Stanford.

The largest college admissions fraud scam unearthed in US history was run out of a small college preparation company in Newport Beach, California that relied on bribes to sports coaches, phony test takers, and even doctored photos depicting non-athletic applicants as elite competitors to land college slots for the offspring of rich parents, prosecutors said.

"These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege," Andrew Lelling, the US attorney in Boston, said at a news conference. "For every student admitted through fraud, an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected."

William "Rick" Singer, 58, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges related to running the scheme through his Edge College & Career Network, which charged from $100,000 to as much as $2.5 million per child for the services, which were masked as contributions to a scam charity Singer runs.

"I was essentially buying or bribing the coaches for a spot," Singer said as he pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. "And that occurred very frequently."

John Vandemoor, a former Stanford University sailing coach who worked with Singer, also pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

It was the latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the high-stakes, high-stress world of admissions to top colleges. Prosecutors in Boston in recent years have also charged Chinese nationals with cheating on entrance exams, while the College Board, which administers the SAT tests, was rocked in 2016 by a security breach that exposed hundreds of questions planned for tests.

Some 300 law enforcement agents swept across the country to make arrests in what agents code-named "Operation Varsity Blues." Huffman and Loughlin were due to appear in federal court in Los Angeles later on Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have so far named 33 parents, 13 coaches, and associates of Singer's business.

Other parents charged include Manuel Henriquez, the chief executive of specialty finance lender Hercules Capital; Gordon Caplan, the co-chairman of international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Bill McGlashan Jr., who heads a buyout investment arm of private equity firm TPG Capital; and Douglas Hodge, the former CEO of the investment management firm Pimco.

Representatives for the companies and for Huffman and Loughlin either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

The alleged masterminds of scam and parents who paid into it could all face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Huffman, a former best actress Oscar nominee who is married to actor William H. Macy, starred in ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

Loughlin, best known for her role in the ABC sitcom "Full House" and the recent Netflix sequel "Fuller House," is married to clothing company founder Mossimo Giannulli, who was also charged in the scheme.

'HELP THE WEALTHIEST'

On a call with a wealthy parent, prosecutors said, Singer summed up his business: "What we do is help the wealthiest families in the US get their kids into school ... my families want a guarantee."

Prosecutors said it was up to the universities what to do with students admitted through cheating.

Yale University and the University of Southern California (USC) said in separate statements that they were cooperating with investigators.

"The Department of Justice believes that Yale has been the victim of a crime perpetrated by its former women's soccer coach," Yale said in a statement.

The coach, Rudolph Meredith, resigned in November after 24 years running the women's soccer team. Meredith, who accepted a $400,000 bribe from Singer, is due to plead guilty, prosecutors said. His lawyer declined to comment.

Prosecutors said the scheme began in 2011 and also helped children get into the University of Texas, Georgetown University, Wake Forest University, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Part of the scheme involved advising parents to lie to test administrators that their child had learning disabilities that allowed them extra exam time.

The parents were then advised to choose one of 2 test centers that Singer's company said it had control over: one in Houston, Texas, and the other in West Hollywood, California.

Test administrators in those centers took bribes of tens of thousands of dollars to allow Singer's clients to cheat, often by arranging to have wrong answers corrected or having another person take the exam. Singer would agree with parents beforehand roughly what score they wanted the child to get.

In many cases, the students were not aware that their parents had arranged for the cheating, prosecutors said, although in other cases they knowingly took part. None of the children were charged on Tuesday.

Singer also helped parents stage photographs of their children playing sports or even Photoshopped children's faces onto images of athletes downloaded from the internet to exaggerate their athletic credentials.

Wake Forest said it had placed head volleyball coach Bill Ferguson on administrative leave after he was among the coaches accused of accepting bribes.

According to the criminal complaint, investigators heard McGlashan of TPG Capital listening to Singer tell him to send along pictures of his son playing sports that he could digitally manipulate to make a fake athletic profile.

"The way the world works these days is unbelievable," McGlashan said to Singer, according to court papers.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hollywood stars among dozens charged over college entrance scam

NEW YORK -- "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman and fellow Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin were among dozens indicted Tuesday in a multi-million dollar scam to help children of the American elite cheat their way into top universities.

The accused, who also include chief executives, financiers, the chairman of a prominent law firm, a winemaker and fashion designer, allegedly cheated on admissions tests and arranged for bribes to get their children into prestigious schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.

They paid a bogus charity run by Californian William Singer more than $25 million over seven years both to arrange for people to fix SAT and ACT entrance exams for their children, and also to bribe university sports coaches to recruit their children, even when the children were not qualified to play at that level.

The case sparked outrage across the country, especially among parents who stress about the intense competition for places in universities and, more broadly, about privileged behavior among the richest Americans.

In all, 50 people were charged: 33 parents who paid to give their kids undeserved entry into high-end college life; 13 university sports coaches and test organization operators; and Singer and three others who operated the fraudulent scheme.

Thirteen of those accused, including Huffman, were arrested and slated for arraignment late Tuesday in Los Angeles. Others appeared in courts in Boston, New York, Connecticut and elsewhere. Loughlin was not arrested because she was in Canada.

None of the universities or the companies who run the tests were implicated, and none of the students involved were charged.

"These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege," said Andrew Lelling, the US attorney in Boston, Massachusetts where the case was announced.

"Every year hundreds of thousands of hard-working, talented students strive for admission to elite schools," he said.

"There can be no separate college admission system for the wealthy, and, I'll add, there will not be a separate criminal justice system, either."

PREYING ON PARENTAL ANXIETY 

The scheme aimed to take advantage of the two years of the anxiety s parents across the United States often endure as they put high school-age children through the standardized tests needed to gain entry into heavily competitive colleges and universities.

Even legally, wealth plays a role. Parents who can afford to pay heavily for test preparation and have their children take the tests two or three times to better their scores.

In this case, however, Singer arranged for someone to take the test for the students, or paid insiders to fix their scores.

And, in a second part of the scheme, the "side door" operation, Singer would create bogus athletic profiles for the students and manage payoffs to university coaches in minor sports like soccer, crew, water polo and sailing so that the student could be accepted on that basis.

The payments were made to Singer's fake Newport Beach, California charity, Key Worldwide Foundation, and to non-profits managed by the coaches, which allowed the parents to deduct the payoffs and bribes from their taxes.

Singer agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges and assisted investigators in obtaining evidence against his customers and co-conspirators.

NOT 'SHAMELESS' 

Parents paid as little as $15,000 and as much as $6 million to benefit from Singer's operation.

Huffman, 56, and her husband William Macy, the star of Showtime's hit series "Shameless," paid $15,000 for their first daughter to perform well on the test, but decided not to do the same with their second daughter. Macy was mentioned in the case but not charged.

Loughlin, the 54-year-old star of "Full House," and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli allegedly paid $500,000 to gain their two daughters entry into University of Southern California as coxswains for crew teams -- a sport they hadn't participated in before.

Gordon Caplan, co-chairman of New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, allegedly paid $75,000 to have his daughter's test grades fixed.

And William McGlashan, an executive at the huge investment group TPG Capital who specialized in technology investments, allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for both testing and being placed in University of Southern California as a student athlete.

"What is going to happen when they see his application, he'll be flagged as an athlete," Singer told him in a phone conversation recorded by investigators.

"But once he gets here, he just goes, he doesn't go to athletic orientation, He goes to the regular orientation like all my other kids just did... and everything's fine."

Coaches, including the women's soccer coach at Yale University and the sailing coach at Stanford University, took between $200,000 and $400,000 to accept the students onto their teams.

Some attempted to ply the sport and then quit; some claimed injuries and never joined the teams, others, Lelling said, "simply never showed up" to play.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ashley Madison dating site to pay $1.6-M over breach

WASHINGTON - The operators of the Ashley Madison affair-minded dating website agreed Wednesday to pay a $1.6 million penalty over a data breach exposing data from 36 million users, US officials announced.

Ashley Madison's Canadian parent company Ruby agreed to the penalty to settle charges with the US Federal Trade Commission and state regulators for failing to protect confidential user information.

The settlement comes after a hacker group last year released what was said to be personal data on millions of members of Ashley Madison, who were based in 46 countries. The fallout led to reports of blackmail and even suicides.

The financial penalty, split between the federal government and US states suing the company, would increase to $8.75 million to the FTC plus $8.75 million to states if Ashley Madison fails to abide by new information security practices and refrain from misleading consumers.

"This case represents one of the largest data breaches that the FTC has investigated to date, implicating 36 million individuals worldwide," said FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

"The global settlement requires AshleyMadison.com to implement a range of more robust data security practices that will better protect its users' personal information from criminal hackers going forward."

NO COMPENSATION
Ramirez said the penalty being paid is too small to allow for "redress" or compensation to affected consumers, noting that compensation is rarely obtained in data security cases.

"We want them (the company) to feel the pain, we don't want them to profit from unlawful conduct," Ramirez told reporters in a conference call.

But she added that "it would not serve the public interest to put them out of business."

Earlier this year, the dating website -- whose motto had been "life is short, have an affair" rebooted, calling itself an "open-minded dating" service.

The company said at the time it will no longer use female "bots" or automated programs that respond to members pretending to be women on the hunt for men.

According to the FTC complaint, until August 2014, operators of the site lured customers, including 19 million Americans, with fake profiles of women designed to convert them into paid members.

The company failed to adequately protect users' personal information such as date of birth, relationship status and sexual preferences, according to the complaint.

The company confirmed the settlement, saying it would help it move past the hacking episode.

"Today is a pivotal day for our members and for Ashley Madison," said a statement from Ruby chief executive Rob Segal.

"Today's settlement closes an important chapter on the company's past and reinforces our commitment to operating with integrity and to building a new future for our members, our team and our company."

The settlement followed an investigation in cooperation with consumer protection authorities in Canada and Australia. Thirteen US states plus the federal District of Columbia joined the lawsuit.

source: news.abs-cbn.com