'Like' Sent by Her Turns Out to Be 'Fake'... Fair Trade Commission Fines Dating App 'Techlabs'

[Financial News]  A famous dating app company that created fake female member accounts to induce male members to use paid services has been sanctioned by the Fair Trade Commission.
The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 29th that it imposed a corrective order along with a fine of 52 million won on Techlabs, the operator of the dating apps 'Amanda' and 'Neorangnarang', for violating the Electronic Commerce Act.
Techlabs is accused of creating fake female member accounts to unfairly induce male members to use the apps 'Amanda' and 'Neorangnarang' from October 2021 to April 2022.
According to the Fair Trade Commission's investigation, Techlabs created about 270 fake female accounts to solve the gender imbalance problem due to the lack of female members in dating apps and to promote paid activities of male members. The two apps once had a total membership of 10 million, but as user numbers declined due to a drop in app download rankings, they planned these unfair activities.
Techlabs was found to have illegally used photos of female members from another dating app (Yeongwon) they operate in Taiwan for the creation of fake female accounts and arbitrarily set personal information such as age, height, region, education, and body type.
They also conducted so-called 'male user care' operations, using fake accounts to encourage male members' activities. Through this operation, fake female accounts viewed or showed interest in the profiles of 1,137 male members in the 'Amanda' app and as many as 64,768 in the 'Neorangnarang' app.
In particular, in 'Amanda's anonymous board 'Secret Square', fake female accounts wrote 982 posts and 4,990 comments and even sent active expressions of interest such as 'Like' and 'Secret Match' to male members.
Techlabs was found to have systematically conducted these operations by setting quotas for employees, including males.
The two apps provided paid services such as viewing profiles of opposite-sex members and sending friend requests through electronic currencies called 'Ribbon' and 'Heart', and the Fair Trade Commission judged that such deceptive methods unfairly promoted paid subscriptions by male members.
Techlabs had already been fined 220 million won by the Personal Information Protection Commission last September for unauthorized use of profile photos.
Song Myung-hyun, head of the Fair Trade Commission's Electronic Transaction Monitoring Team, said, "This sanction is a measure to eradicate unfair marketing that deceives consumers by pretending to be fake female member activities," adding, "It is expected to raise awareness in the dating app industry and contribute to preventing consumer damage."





spring@fnnews.com Lee Bomi Reporter