LONELY HEARTS

OkCupid Admits to Experimenting on Users

“That’s how websites work.”

Following the backlash against Facebook for its undisclosed experimentation on users, dating website OkCupid has come forward with its own less-than-romantic confession: It’s been experimenting on lovelorn users, too. The site revealed it had performed multiple romantic experiments on unknowing users, including hiding profile pictures and claiming their personality match was higher or lower than the site’s software actually revealed it to be. OkCupid defended its actions in an OkCupid Trends blog post called, “We Experiment on Human Beings!” Founder Christian Rudder “Guess what, everybody: If you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.” OkCupid is owned by IAC, which also is the parent company of The Daily Beast.