Dating app SEO’s China business is getting hit by fake news
SEO, the dating app for men and women that has gained global fame thanks to its wildly popular dating app, has seen its China business get hit by an increasingly sophisticated threat from a Chinese firm that has been accused of spreading fake news.
The China Securities Journal reported that SEO is now under threat from the same firm that filed a lawsuit against Tinder in September, alleging it had used the app to lure users into engaging in illicit activities.
The firm also said SEO users were often duped into signing up for its app and that its software had been used to access and manipulate their personal data.
The Chinese news agency Xinhua said the Chinese law firm behind the lawsuit had already filed an official complaint in August against SEO and its CEO, Wang Zhen, alleging that the company was engaging in fraud, misappropriation and other illegal acts.
The lawsuit also alleged that SEOTabs, the company that runs SEO in China, has been actively manipulating the app’s popularity in an effort to make money.”SEOTabs is using SEO to deceive users into signing a contract that they have no right to sign,” the lawsuit said.
“With its technology, SEOTab is trying to increase its revenue by using users’ personal data and selling them products they do not want.”SEOTab, which launched in China in July, has received hundreds of millions of dollars of investment from China’s largest tech companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and Tencent’s private equity arm, TPG.
Its main competitor is dating app Line, which is owned by Facebook.
Separately, SEO said in a statement that it was investigating the reports.
“As we have said repeatedly, we are working with the relevant authorities and taking steps to fully cooperate with them,” it said.
“As such, we will make every effort to cooperate with the authorities and provide information about the specific allegations and actions that are being investigated.””SEOCam does not condone this type of conduct and has been in regular communication with regulators and law enforcement to address these issues,” the statement said.
In September, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined SEOC for a second time, accusing it of deceiving investors and scamming users into buying products from the dating website.
In September this year, the SEC charged SEOC with defrauding more than 300,000 users of its dating app LINE by selling them fake products that made it appear the company did not have any real-world users.