Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg recently spoke on Facebook’s dating service ambitions, saying that with dating being as personal as it is, people would likely be none too thrilled to hand over even more data to Facebook in order to use the company’s upcoming service. The statement was made at a Recode Decode session, wherein Ginsberg noted that Match would be remiss to dismiss Facebook altogether due to its sheer size and large install base. The Match Group does not make most of its profits through advertising, according to Ginsberg, and that stark contrast may indicate to users that the company is less apt than Facebook to share their data around.
Ginsberg said that only around five-percent of Match’s total revenue comes from advertising, as opposed to close to all of Facebook’s revenue. Match owns Match.com, Tinder, OKCupid, and many other dating sites, many of which charge a subscription or charge a la carte for communications with other members. This business model enables Match to be much more privacy-oriented. Public trust in Match’s properties to handle personal data over Facebook has seemingly already manifested in at least one way; Ginsberg said that when the option to sign up for Tinder without linking your Facebook was rolled out last year, about 75-percent of new signups opted not to use their Facebook accounts with the dating app.
Ginsberg’s notions may put investors at ease after Facebook shook up the space by revealing at its annual F8 developer conference that it planned to launch a dating service. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, this would be an extension of Facebook’s core mission to help people forge lasting, meaningful relationships. On that note, the service would not be competing directly with a number of dating apps out there that mainly serve up speed dating-style connections or are mainly used for hookups. It should be noted that Match, who will be Facebook’s main competition in the space, has a wide range of products across the entire spectrum, and many products can serve multiple purposes.