Dating site screens daters for a history of sex crimes

Dating is really hard. Finding someone, connecting with someone, realizing that someone is a registered sex offender... If you'd like to skip that last part, though, you have two options: either hand your date an application or start using Match.com. Due to a recent lawsuit, the popular dating site will be cross-referencing all of their potential users with the National Sex Offender Registry. The charges involve a female user who was allegedly raped by a man she met through Match.com on their second date. Whether or not these charges are real, it has been confirmed that the accused man, Alan Wurtzel, has indeed been convicted of sexual assault on six separate occasions. Womp womp.

As of right now, Match.com's site clearly states that they are in no way responsible for the safety of their customers. They tell you upfront that they do not screen their users and never attempt to verify the information their users share in their profiles. The lawsuit was filed last Wednesday, but it wasn't until Sunday night that Match.com president Mandy Ginsberg released a statement announcing the new change in policy. Despite the new safety precautions, Ginsberg is still urging users to be smart:

"We want to stress that while these checks may help in certain instances, they remain highly flawed, and it is critical that this effort does not provide a false sense of security to our members."

Which, I have to say, makes sense. It's terrible that anyone ever gets raped by sex offenders, but it's hard to imagine the likelihood is higher on a dating site than it is anywhere else. And you wouldn't sue the bar where you met an asshole, would you?