It’s not been all peace and harmony for dating site eHarmony of late, with the firm having to shell out $2 million in a settlement over its homophobic refusal to allow lesbians, gays and bisexuals to be desperate e-daters too.
The firm announced Tuesday evening that it would be settling with Carlson, et. Al on the (very fashionable and totally this season) class action lawsuit filed in 2007.
The gay community had apparently been rather peeved by the fact the site would not add same-sex support to its system and would not allow its fabulous members to trawl for online tottie like its straight members.
Realizing that it had better cash in on the gay scene, however, eHarmony held its nose and launched the patronizingly named “compatible partners” website in March of 2009, for same sex coupling.
Still, the up-tight, conservative service did its utmost to distance itself from its creation, something which somehow failed to endear itself to the very crowd it was supposed to be catering to.
But as of Tuesday that is apparently all behind us, because eHarmony has now had some tolerance forced down its conservative throat, being ordered to set up a $2M settlement fund, with $500,000 of that fund getting split between claims by the class, with unclaimed cash going to a court designated charity.
To rub some lemon martini in eHarmony’s wounds, the settlement also means the firm now has to link the Compatible Partners site from the main eHarmony.com site, as well as have an eHarmony logo on the Compatible Partners page too. Fierce!
Oh, and, if you don’t mind, eHarmony, the settlement also says you also have to change that aggressively worded “Powered by eHarmony” tagline to a gentler and more fitting “brought to you by eHarmony.”
