Saturday, August 20, 2005

Letter to Gay.com

If you're a gay man (or woman I suppose), you're well aware of the Web site "Gay.Com." It has become somewhat of a staple in the online gay community for live chat with other likeminded souls (this is a fancy way of saying an easy place to hook up). If you haven't been to the site, the way it works is that you create a profile with your stats, likes/dislikes, pictures of yourself/pets/family, etc. The premise is that users can log on and chat with anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world. And it works quite well, actually. Except for one thing: Fake Profiles.

Rather than go into details, I'm including a recent e-mail I sent to Gay.com to see if I could create any kind of stir about this (I will be unrelenting, I promise).

Dear Gay.com staff,

I'm writing for two reasons: first, to express my dissatisfaction with the number of fraudulent profiles that are currently littering our chat rooms; and second, to offer a suggestion on how this might be curtailed, if not eliminated altogether.

Fake profiles are toxic to your customers and to your business. Their presence significantly undermines my online experience, and ultimately devalues the services for which I'm paying. I am repeatedly barraged by the constant intrusion of private messages clearly programmed to auto-message me (and I'm sure everyone else). These profiles occupy prime space in the chat rooms and reduce the ability for real customers to enter, and subsequently connect with others. They are frequently vulgar and offensive. They are inherently deceitful and underhanded, and foster mistrust and animosity amongst your users. In my opinion, these profiles are ruining Gay.com.

Your customers deserve some basic protections against such hassles. And it's insulting that you have let this get so out of hand. I could find no mention of fraudulent profiles anywhere in your supporting documentation, or any overt effort to acknowledge the problem or discuss the desire to curtail such activities. Frankly, the absence of such acknowledgment could lead one to believe that Gay.com is actually BEHIND these profiles. It would be easy to come to this conclusion based on the circumstances: 1) in most cases, these profiles do not promote or advertise anything; 2) they are always young, good-looking and overtly sexual; 3) there is absolutely no protections in place to prevent them; 4) they clearly have automated functions within the java code set that would difficult for 3rd parties to hack; and 5) Motive: To fill the chat rooms with hot guys to increase the allure of the service? Beef up their numbers for advertisers? To flood the rooms with adult pictures not visible by non-paying members so as to increase subscriber revenue? As a long-time member and subscriber to your services I sincerely hope none of this is true.

I'd like to suggest a two-pronged approach to reducing or eliminating this problem. First would be incorporating a registration process that prevents automated profile creation (i.e., a visually distorted validation code keyed by the user). Second would be a member-based notification process where if a specific number of users reported a profile as fraudulent, it would be suspended until further verification was obtained. Member-based policing would be extremely empowering to your users and could be extremely effective. Based on comments I see repeatedly in the chat rooms, members would love to eliminate this problem--they only lack a tool with which to do so.

I am in Product Management as a profession (health care IT) and I fully appreciate the services you provide and understand the effort that goes into facilitating such a large operation used by so many. I also understand the budget constraints around product enhancements and development. But I am also a huge gay.com fan, and as a product manager, it's hard not to offer unsolicited advice from the trenches of your chat rooms. I sincerely hope that you'll take this feedback constructively and use it to promote positive change for your users and your company. If there is anything I could do to help with this effort, I would gladly volunteer some of my time.

I have no expectation whatsoever that this will be effective at eliminating this problem. But at least I tried!

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