I just sent this letter to JDate. Well, an abbreviated form of the letter, anyway. They only allow 500 characters of feedback. So I had to be terser. I hate terse.

So here’s my “director’s cut,” with a paragraph of “extra footage.” Enjoy…

Dear JDate,

You sent me matches. Never mind that most of the time these matches are people I already know and who are definitively NOT my matches. I understand that the nature of search engine-generated emails results in a personalized email that’s not really personalized.

This time, you sent me a terrific guy! Cute, sounded smart from his profile (which is harder to find than it should be), and WHO HASN’T LOGGED INTO JDATE SINCE NOVEMBER OF 2002. Suffice it to say, he’s probably not expecting to hear from me. He could be married with a kid and a half by now.

Why send out a profile of a member who is decidedly not active? It’s false advertising. Isn’t there a certain time (say, two years) after which profiles need to be renewed or lost? Or are all the profiles that were ever put up still floating out there unless their owners specifically delete them? When you claim over 500,000 members, does that include all the people who have ever registered, most of whom may not log in regularly, or even if they do, may not be paying members and therefore unable to view messages anyway?