True.com's Exploitation of Women Goes to Far

True's Exploitation of Women
for Profits Goes Too Far with True Ads
by Joe Tracy, Publisher of Online Dating Magazine

(April 2005) Online dating service True.com, which professes to be safer because it conducts background checks on members, is resorting to sleazy advertising campaigns that exploit women in order to try and gain more members. These ads are a sharp contrast to the dating service's home page, which shows loving couples and no cleavage. It seems to be part of True's deceptive nature. In this case, I could describe the controversial advertisements that True is running, but perhaps viewing the ads will better put things into perspective:

If True is trying to build itself as a sleazy erotic dating service, it is doing a good job. The message True is sending through its ads is that True women are big-breasted models who are "easy". The ads, because of the pictures, give the impression that True is a site for "hooking up" versus finding true love.

From viewing these ads men may sign up for True expecting to find "easy" women. After all, the images seem to portray True more as an escort service than as a legitimate relationship service.

And what woman will want to sign up for an online dating service that portrays them only as sex objects?

Furthermore, True shows a strong hypocritical nature that the company has shown in other areas too. In the ads, True says to "Find True Love" but its pictures give an opposite impression. This is the same hypocritical nature as True's campaign to get lawmakers to force other online dating services to run criminal background checks on members. True tries to give the impression that it is just looking out for online daters, but they don't advertise the fact that they signed an exclusive contract with the largest online criminal background check service before trying to force other dating sites to do criminal background checks. If True was truly looking out for online daters, they would allow other online dating services to use the same provider of background checks.

True is becoming the poster child of what is wrong with online dating. They try to portray a clean image while running deceptive campaigns to try and gain new members. Even on their service, when a non-paying member tries to view the photo of a person, they are taken to a Join screen where on the left hand side a chat like window appears with the person's picture and you see the words typed out on screen, "hi handsome, want to chat sometime?" A flashing cursor then awaits your response. When you go to try and respond, you get a message to complete the signup process in order to start chatting. The thing is, the person never messaged you. It's just another deceptive True ad.

But worse, True tries to attract men by exploiting women. And this goes to the heart of why True is becoming one of the worst online dating services online. They give a strong appearance that they don't care about their members - only money.

It seems that True Lies is no longer just a movie.

Joe Tracy
jtracy@onlinedatingmagazine.com

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