Chemistry.com in Spat With eHarmony.com
Thursday, 17. May 2007 - 8:37 am
THE WASHINGTON POST — May 16 — A name-calling Catfight, complete with accusations and counter-accusations, has broken out between eHarmony.com (13 million registrants since 2000) and an offshoot of Match.com over a subject familiar to any luckless dater. Rejection. Chemistry's (2 million registrants since 2006) TV commercials and magazine ads feature young men and women wondering why their applications to join eHarmony were turned down. No fair, says eHarmony, concerned that its rival's ads suggest that eHarmony is being arbitrary or discriminatory in turning people away. It wants Chemistry.com's ads changed or dropped. eHarmony's legal counsel, Lanny Davis (who spun the media for President Bill Clinton during his "relationship problems" with Monica Lewinsky), last week asked NBC and People magazine to stop running Chemistry.com's current ads, or at least insist on some fine-print qualifiers about what "1 million rejected" really means. (As of Friday, NBC hadn't responded to Davis; People magazine said that it wasn't taking sides in the feud and that it would continue running the ads.) eHarmony turns people away for controversial reasons. One is being gay. CEO, Greg Waldorf says eHarmony's matching system is based on psychological research about heterosexual relationships. Because it doesn't have similar data on gay people, he says, the company isn't confident that it can offer successful matches to same-sex couples. "I'm not saying anything precludes us from going into the same-sex market in the future," he says, "but it's not a service we offer now." Firing back, eHarmony accuses Chemistry's parent company of hypocrisy. It notes that IAC made formal overtures to buy eHarmony in 2004, but a deal never came off. FULL ARTICLE @ STAR-TELEGRAM.COM
Mark Brooks: These days the best kind of advertising spawns press, word-of-mouth, and riles up the competition. Match.com has kicked off on every level with their campaign. This year we should surely see a free version of eharmony startup. Perhaps the fresh faced (new) Mary.com or LTR.com, or the current dominant free dating market leader PlentyofFish.com. Beyond that, MyPartnerPerfect.com is due to launch shortly as the quality, long term focused, personality profiling, all gay matchmaking site, headed by the young Dr Patrick H.Perrine.
17. October 2007 - 10:31 pm
Yes, first of all, I was “rejected” – beats me why. I’m not Republican, Christian, gay or indigent. I’m writing to ask two questions:
1) Anybody ever think that Chemistry.com might just be a different “franchise” of Mr. Smiley, using this “spat” with eHarmony to drum up free advertising, and getting it, aimed toward that 1,000,000 (or more, I’m sure)of us who are in a different “caste” than The Accepted Ones, and angry enough about it to spend Chemistry’s fee just to “show” eHarmony what’s what. In other words, they’re still getting our business, but they’re “putting us together with the people we ‘belong’ with” – not the “nice” people – and mind you, I’ve never been arrested (not even a speeding ticket, for that matter.)I think they’re using us to start a “STage Two” of eHarmony, featuring the Second Class citizens.
2) How do we get a class action suit started against eHarmony? I’m game, and I’ll bet you there are 999,999 others, +, who’d be willing to play.
Enough. I may not own a small state, but I deserve a response, after being “rejected” and writing to ask why three times.
If anyone else feels the same, let’s get the show on the road. There is definitely power in numbers, and I’ve had it with these silly corporate games.
Thanks for listening, everyone.