A Virginia General Assembly committee on Monday rejected a bill that would have required online dating companies to display prominent messages on their Web sites and e-mails stating whether they conduct criminal background checks on their users.
Under the proposal, online dating services would have been required to conduct background checks to determine whether users have been convicted of a felony. If a service chose not to conduct the checks, it would have been required to disclose that in at least 12-point type on its Web pages and e-mails.
The Virginia House of Delegates's Science and Technology Committee voted 9-4 against the bill. "For practical purposes, it's dead for the rest of the session," said sponsor Joe May (R-Loudoun).
May's bill was similar to legislation introduced in five states during the past year to require background checks on would-be online daters. The effort was begun last July at the urging of Herbert Vest, chief executive of True.com, a Dallas, Texas-based online dating site that launched in December 2003.
Vest said in an interview that "there is a great deal of criminal predation" on Internet dating sites and that only background checks would make people feel safer. He said that this would lead to growth in the online dating business as more people trust the services.
So far, Vest has persuaded legislators in several states to sponsor legislation to require sites to say whether they do background checks. The Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill last year, but it died later in the state Senate. A Texas state senator plans to introduce a similar bill before the end of the week, and similar measures are afoot in Ohio and Florida, according to lawmakers and aides involved in drafting the proposals.
The strategy, Vest said, is to get enough states to pass the bills that Congress responds to the groundswell by trying to pass a federal law.
Match.com, the nation's largest online dating service, opposes requiring criminal background and FBI checks, as does the Internet Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm with a roster of large technology company clients such as Experian, Time Warner, SBC Communications and Comcast.
People could get around the checks by using fake names, and there are several states that do not make their sex offender and criminal records available for dating services, said Internet Alliance Executive Director Emily Hackett. "It would be a false trust," she said.
Most of Match.com's 17 million users say that background checks are not a priority, said Kristin Kelly, the Dallas-based company's vice president of love.
