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Big news today in the world of online dating. Carole Markin, a sexual assault victim of someone who she met on Match.com legally settled with the online dating site after they agreed to conduct background checks on all of its members to screen out known sex offenders. This is a victory of some sort to bring more responsibility to Match.com to weed out predators.
I must applaud Ms. Markin. Being a victim of sexual assault is traumatizing already. She took it upon herself to put a face on this litigation to make sure other women are protected.
With this said, I feel that this should not dissuade anyone from ensuring their own safety. As much as Match.com and other online dating companies that follow suite, they cannot completely filter out predators. As far as I know, there are no controls to prevent people from signing up using fake names. This also will not filter out people who are not on the sexual offender list. This also does not filter people with criminal history.
I still believe in online dating sites. We just need to exercise our judgement to ensure we are safe.