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PlentyofFish Withdraw Offer for True, CEO Hits Out at Texas AG

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Plenty of Fish have withdrawn their offer to buy bankrupted rivals True.com, with CEO Markus Frind hitting out at Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. 

The Canadian-owned site offered $700,000 for True.com, who are in bankruptcy hearings and looking to sell their assets, which include their 43m strong member database. 

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott recently filed a legal objection to the sale of the database, saying it violated privacy laws.

And now POF have withdrawn their offer for True.com, and Markus Frind is not happy about having his hand forced.

Speaking to The Washington Post’s Law Blog, Frind said: “The fact that the Texas AG stopped one dating site from buying another dating site without user consent is like asking all Twitter users to approve its IPO.”

On his blog, Frind said: “Who in their right mind is going to buy a dating site with 43 million members if you are not allowed access to those members?   

“Or for that matter anything that may be defined as personal identifiable information.      

“This would be like buying twitter but you don’t get access to twitters users unless they agree to the sale.”

Texas AG Greg Abbott objected to the sale of True’s database, 2m of whom are Texans, as their sign-up terms said members’ personals details would not be sold.

However True.com’s privacy policy said that should the company be bought, members’ information would be treated as a sellable asset.

Last week Abbott said: “At a time when privacy is an issue of grave concern to so many, we are taking legal action to prevent an online dating service from selling more than 2 million Texans’ personal information without their consent.” 

Yesterday GlobalDatingInsights posted an article presenting theories as to why Markus Frind is looking to buy True.com, which you can read here.

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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