An appeals court has ruled that Tinder needs stop charging older users more than younger ones to avoid age discrimination.
The original class action lawsuit was brought in 2016, but Tinder argued that it had the differentiated pricing structure due to market testing that showed younger users were more “budget constrained” than older ones. Younger users are charged $9.99 or $14.99 for Tinder Plus while those 30 and over are charged $19.99, NBC News reported.
The appeals court reversed an earlier ruling to argue that the pricing violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1959, which says that consumers must have “equal access to public accommodations and prohibits discrimination by business establishments.”
“Nothing in the [original] complaint suggests there is a strong public policy that justifies the alleged discriminatory pricing,” Judge Brian Currey wrote in the opinion for the 3-0 appeals court ruling, Ars Technica reported. “Accordingly, we swipe left,” a reference to the app’s “swipe to reject” feature, “and reverse.”
Tinder Plus gives users more features than the basic membership, including “super-likes” to get better responses from other users.
The ruling left open whether any compensation would be given to users like Allan Candelore who proposed the original class-action lawsuit, or other Tinder users who were charged more because of their age, Ars Technica reported.
The judge's choice to use Tinder language in the ruling caught Twitter users' attention.
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