| B.C. Mountie who had sex on the job ordered to resign
A British Columbia Mountie who had sex on the job and used his uniform to draw dates will have to resign, an RCMP adjudication board decided Wednesday. RCMP Const. Trent Richards admitted to having sex with women on at least 15 occasions while on duty at the rural detachment in Shawnigan Lake, B.C., on Vancouver Island. Richards, 34, posted his profile on internet dating sites offering "sex with a hot cop" and posted a photo of himself in his red serge dress uniform on one site. RCMP accused Richards of using force computers to pursue his extra-curricular activities. Richards has been suspended with pay since January 2007. The adjudication board decided Richards must resign within two weeks or be dismissed for "repeated on-duty sexual activity, as well as repeated misuse of RCMP information technology." He has 14 days to appeal the decision to the RCMP commissioner.
Cyber love lost in Russian bride scam
An online Russian dating scam that Canadian police say has organized crime roots has bilked men of thousands of dollars. Several men report being duped into sending romantic gifts and money to men posing as Russian brides on internet dating sites. According to an investigation by Radio-Canada's La Facture program, the number of incidents involving Canadian men is on the rise. Francis, 29, is a Quebecer who said he was scammed after falling in love with a blond Russian named Irina Gorachkina, whom he found on a dating website. He said they started out exchanging neutral, friendly e-mails. "At first we talked about what we were like," he told Radio-Canada. "I told her I liked the outdoors, walking in the woods." Francis's e-mail correspondence with Irina grew intimate and after weeks passed was filled with declarations of love such as, "I need you like a fish needs water, like a bird needs wings.
Pr. George's Police Suspect Online Prowler in Six Rapes
The rapist stalks his victims on the Internet, surfing popular dating Web sites and chat rooms, where he meets women and sets up sex dates. At least six times, unsuspecting Prince George's County women arrived for a date but found a masked attacker, armed with a handgun, county police said yesterday. .
Beware Yahoo Personals’ deceptive billing policy
You might be wondering what a post like this is doing on a blog largely about VoIP, but bear with me. To some extent, this post is about VoIP. And athough I try not to air my consumer grievances here, I am writing this post to warn you about a practice that your knowledge of can save you some dollars. OK, first let us go back a year. My love life, my dating life, was in a rough patch. (If you want details, you buy the next pitcher). Not wanting to remain in the state I just referred to, I decided I would declare a jihad on loneliness. Being a creature of the Internet, I posted a profile on several dating sites including Yahoo! Personals. My Match.com profile soon led to a happy result. That's her photo on the top of my CPU tower. As soon as the ultimately "happy result" became quantifiable, I let my Yahoo! Personals account lapse.
Match.com Eyes Social Scenes at Facebook, MySpace
Online dating site Match.com has made its own resolution for 2008: to get out and meet more people, or in this case, potential subscribers. Match is in the midst of a foray into Internet social networks, testing an application for online hangout Facebook, and seeks growth in new vehicles for its subscription service, according to Chief Executive Thomas Enraght-Moony.
"We're extending Match to wherever people are," Moony told Reuters in an interview in New York on Monday. "MySpace has announced their platform initiative, we're exploring that. If they opened up the Nintendo Wii (video game console), I'd probably do that as well." After building sites for lonely hearts in 37 countries, Match posted slower global subscriber growth at the end of 2007 from a year ago as it fends off competition from rival services, as well as from social networks themselves.
The hottest trends in online dating
Internet dating has been great for the industry. It has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help. It's like a giant sales funnel. At the top are generic dating sites and at the bottom are expensive matchmaking services. Online dating does take time and money. If you have considerably more bucks, you can go straight to the matchmaking service and have a date with somebody who is compatible right away. What new technologies are you seeing in online dating? One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. There's a lot of talk about how Web sites like Second Life will impact online dating. I've seen statistics that 80% of people will have an online virtual identity by 2011. That seems very high to me! One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com.
Attack of the flirt-bots
Bummer. Wasn't artificial intelligence (AI) supposed to be more, well, ominous? Like the rogue Skynet system in Terminator, or Agent Smith in The Matrix. Something that at least threatened humanity with extinction. Something, you know, impressive. Instead we get ... "flirt-bots." Computer security watchdogs are warning about a new type of artificial intelligence software coming out of the extensive Russian hacker networks. It's a "bot" or robot program called "CyberLover," designed to dynamically interact with people through Internet chat rooms and dating Web sites. .
Sentinel Lunchtime Blog (Valentine's Day Edition): The laws of love online
It's been a while since one of my singles blogs have been written and posted. Those of you out there who actually read these things may have wondered if I'd stopped writing because I'm no longer single. Sadly, that's not the case.Today is Valentine's Day and I, like many others, am single. If it weren't for writing this blog, I would have conveniently "forgotten" today was the day of love, flowers, candy and candlelight. However, while perusing stories from the Associated Press, I came across a relationships article detailing a new law in New Jersey requiring online dating sites to perform background checks on its users. As an alum of online dating, my interest was piqued.My first thought was, well, that's a good idea — Internet dating can be dangerous. Then I got to thinking and realized, as the article points out, background checks are pointless in the world of dating.Think about it.
TRUE.com Applauds Lawmakers for Passing Landmark Safer Dating ...
DALLAS, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire/-- TRUE.com(R), the leading scientifically based online relationship service, congratulates New Jersey legislators for yesterday enacting the nation's first online dating legislation -- which is designed to protect the growing number of New Jersey citizens who are going online to meet potential dates. The Internet Dating Safety Act (Senate Bill-1977/A4304) requires online dating services to disclose their criminal background screening practices and to offer safer dating tips on their sites. With the growing concern nationwide about online safety overall, this legislation reinforces TRUE's steadfast commitment to safer online dating. TRUE's proactive policy requires criminal background and marriage screenings on all of its communicating members -- the only practice of its kind among major online dating sites.
Save the Planet by Surfing the Web, 'Green' Websites Promise
On the internet, anyone can be an environmentalist. All you have to do, is, well, nothing. A number of "green" internet businesses promise users they can help save the planet by doing little more than surfing the right websites. For instance, Blackle.com claims to help you save energy by offering a version of Google that has a black background, which may cut down on your display's electricity consumption. There are green search engines, green shopping sites, and even green dating sites -- it's an impressive abundance of good intentions. .
NJ sex offenders banned from online socializing
The state Parole Board today banned the 4,400 registered sex offenders it supervises from using social networking Web sites, chat rooms and online dating services as a way to prevent them from possibly luring victims into real-world danger. The move comes after a state investigation into 268 New Jersey registered sex offenders found that using the site MySpace.com led to only two offenders being punished because existing state rules only banned those who used a computer to commit a sex crime from visiting such sites. "The protection of all of our citizens and particularly our young people makes the imposition of this new restriction critical," state Parole Board Chairman Peter Barnes said after the board unanimously approved the ban. Sex offenders will still be allowed to visit other Internet sites as well as use e-mail.
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