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Apple & Google Pulled Three Dating Apps After The FTC Found Children Were Using Them

On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Apple and Google removed three dating apps from their stores for allowing kids as young as 12 to access them. The apps in question — Meet24, FastMeet, and Meet4U — are operated by Wildec, a Ukraine-based company. The apps collected users’ birthdates, email addresses, photographs, and real-time location data, the FTC reported. Although each app’s privacy policy claimed to block users who indicated they were under 13, none of the apps actually did so. Instead, young children were able to use the app and be contacted by other people. The FTC did send each of the apps a warning letter, stating that allowing adult users to communicate with children “poses a serious health and safety risk.” In addition, the letter noted that “several individuals have reportedly faced criminal charges for allegedly contacting or attempting to contact minors using Wildec’s apps.” Most alarmingly, the FTC’s letter noted that Wildec seemed to be...

Vanessa Taylor

May 7, 2019