In 1993, Match.com was founded by
Gary Kremen and Peng T. Ong in San Francisco. At the beginning, Match.com was the name of the website, while the company that operated it was formally named Electric Classifieds Inc. Fran Maier later joined the company as its director of marketing. In 1997, Match.com was purchased by
CUC International. Following CUC's merger with HFS to form
Cendant, the company was sold to
IAC in 1999.
Growth and partnerships In September 2001, Match.com partnered with
AOL and
MSN with the idea that Love@AOL and MSN Dating and Personals would allow a more diverse audience to gain access to Match.com. In 2002 and early 2003, Match.com's then CEO, Tim Sullivan, expanded Match.com into local dating with a service called MatchLive, where daters would meet in a public location for social activities and a form of
speed dating. In September 2004,
Jim Safka replaced Sullivan as CEO. Safka was replaced as CEO by Thomas Enraght-Moony in 2007. On November 10, 2005, a
class action was filed by Matthew Evans against Match.com in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging that Match.com employed fake members to send emails and go on dates with paying members. IAC repudiated the suit as baseless and was later dismissed by the
United States District Court for the Central District of California on April 25, 2007. Similar suits were filed in June 2009 and December 2010, with the judges ruling that Match.com did not break user agreements. In January 2006, Match.com hired
Dr. Phil McGraw as a celebrity spokesman.
Formation of Match Group In February 2009, IAC incorporated
Match Group as a conglomerate of Match.com and other dating sites it owned. Also in February, it was announced that Match.com's European operations would be sold to
Meetic for 5 million Euros and a reported twenty-seven percent interest in the company. At the same time that this sale was announced, the current CEO Thomas Enraght-Moony stepped down, while IAC's (Match.com's parent company) Executive VP and General Counsel, Greg Blatt, took his place. In July 2009, Match.com acquired People Media, which powered AOL Personals and operated BlackPeopleMeet.com and OurTime.com from American Capital for $80 million. The following year, Match.com acquired SinglesNet, another dating site. In December 2010, Match.com’s CEO Greg Blatt was made CEO of parent company IAC. That same year, Match.com announced Stir, an events service that was to offer local events each month for Match.com members to attend. In April 2014, Match.com launched an updated mobile app with a feature called "Stream" which used location to match people based on photographs, using similar algorithms as the mobile dating app Tinder. The platform's membership auto-billing method has been criticized by customers for the lack of transparency. In 2017, Yagan was replaced by
Mandy Ginsberg as the CEO of Match.com’s parent company, Match Group. In 2020, Ginsberg was succeeded by
Shar Dubey as the CEO of Match Group. In 2022, Match Group released a new service called Stir, a dating app for single parents. In April 2022, The Match Group announced that Shar Dubey was stepping down from her position as CEO while remaining on the board of directors.
Bernard Kim, ex-president of online video game service
Zynga, became CEO effective May 31, 2022. ==Use by sexual predators==