Dating Complaints

Share Your Dating Dilemma

Have you faced heartbreak, deception, or dishonesty in your relationship? We're here to listen. Click on the "Share Complaint" button below and submit your dating complaint story. Your voice matters, and together, we can shed light on dating issues and provide support to those in need.

FAQs

How Long Does It Take For A New Submission To Appear?

 
Want to guess what the  most common question is? Oddly, it’s something like this: “I submitted a post a few days ago but it’s still not showing up. How long until my post appears?”

We appreciate people wanting to submit new material, and we know you’re eager to see your post appear RIGHT NOW. However, in most cases it can take several hours or possibly even several days before your post will appear on our site.

There are two main reasons for this delay.

First, unlike Twitter or Facebook, posts on Dating Complaints don’t appear in real time (only comments are real time). When you submit a new post, it goes into a holding area so that it can be reviewed by our staff. Dating Complaints does not allow nudity, pornography,  so all posts are briefly held so that we can screen out this sort of material. We also screen out posts that are duplicate, redundant, uninteresting, etc.

Second, we don’t want to blast out too much content (i.e., 500 new posts each hour) because this would cause new submissions to quickly bury and obscure old ones. We therefore try to moderate the publication of new content by putting new posts into a queue and releasing them at a steady pace rather than all at the same time.

Because we receive so many new posts each day, the queue of posts waiting to be released can often be several days or even several weeks long.

P.S. If you submitted a post and it hasn’t appeared on the site, please be patient. There’s no need to ask us for a status report (we don’t respond to those types of requests). Just wait a few days and check back later.

I Need To Obtain User Information From You?

Please start by sending us an email from your official law enforcement email account to dating-complaints-dmca@gingraslaw.com. Just let us know what you’re asking for and why you need the information. Requests which include a police report are MUCH more likely to be viewed favorably. ALWAYS include a link to the specific post in question. Depending on the specific situation, we may require you to obtain a subpoena (a search warrant is not the proper investigative tool), but we will explain this further after you contact us.

Also, FYI — although we are happy to work with law enforcement dealing with legitimate investigations, please be aware that it is unlawful for any public official to use his/her governmental power to violate the First Amendment rights of an anonymous Internet speaker. In plain English, what this means is very simple — if you are a member of law enforcement and you offer to help a friend by issuing a subpoena without valid legal grounds for doing so, you are breaking the law and you could face significant personal liability pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

To help demonstrate this point, take a look at this case: Rich v. City of Jacksonville, 2010 WL 4403095 (M.D.Fla. 2010). As this case explains, if a public official obtains a subpoena seeking to unmask an anonymous Internet speaker without probable cause, the public official will not be entitled to qualified immunity and will face personal liability for violating the speaker’s constitutional rights.

Moral of the story to all good cops out there — please don’t even think about pursuing the identity of an anonymous Internet user unless you have probable cause to believe the person has committed a crime. Also, when contacting us please be prepared to explain what crime you are investigating and why probable cause exists to believe our user has committed that crime. We’re not trying to make your life harder; we are simply trying to protect the rights of our users unless and until there’s valid grounds to believe they have crossed the line.

Should I Hire a Lawyer or Seo Service to Remove My Post?

We almost didn’t post an answer to this question. Why? Because it’s kind of like asking a cop who just arrested you whether you need to hire a lawyer. Would you really trust the cop’s advice at that point? But we are asked this question so frequently, we wanted to offer a few comments about it.

It’s no secret that there are lots of lawyers out there who are happy to take your money in exchange for helping you deal with an unflattering online post, either on Dating Complaints or another website. Some of these lawyers are good, and some are not. Same thing with SEO (search engine optimization) companies.

If you Google “how to remove a post from Dating Complaints”, you will get TONS of ads and links for lawyers/law firms and SEO companies. Because we get so many removal requests, we are familiar with many of these folks (especially the lawyers), and we know that some of them are skilled professionals who can do a lot to help victims of online defamation. On the other hand, we also get tons of legal threats and demand letters from lawyers who clearly don’t have a clue about this area of law.

Unfortunately, because removing posts from Dating Complaints is generally not in our best interest, we really aren’t comfortable giving people advice on whether they should hire a lawyer, or whether they should spend money with an SEO company. In other words, it would be better for us if we only recommended BAD lawyers, so that’s why you really don’t want to ask us to recommend someone good.

What we can tell you is that we would NEVER advise anyone to hire a lawyer unless they have significant experience dealing with online defamation. This is a highly specialized area of law, and just because you have a lawyer friend who handles DUIs doesn’t mean he/she is qualified to help with online issues. If you’re thinking of hiring a lawyer, you should ask them how many cases of online defamation they’ve handled and what the outcome was.

Can I Pay To Remove A Post?

Please don’t ask if you can pay us to remove a post. We don’t respond to these types of requests.

FYI — if you’re really interested, there is some legal authority that suggests a website owner CAN lawfully charge money to remove content. In fact, websites like Yelp have been accused of doing exactly that — either removing negative reviews for money, or boosting the prominence of negative reviews unless you pay for “advertising”. Is that extortion? It might feel like it, but so far most courts have rejected that argument.

Consider this holding from a recent federal lawsuit against Yelp which accused it of altering reviews for money: “Plaintiffs’ allegations of extortion based on Yelp’s alleged manipulation of their review pages — by removing certain reviews and publishing others or changing their order of appearance — falls within the conduct immunized by § 230(c)(1).” Levitt v. Yelp!, Inc., 2011 WL 5079526 (N.D.Cal. Oct. 26, 2011).

I Live in Canada And We Have Different Laws Here.  I Am Going To Sue You?

This is technical, but if you file a lawsuit in Canada, any judgment you obtain will be worthless here in the United States. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, check out this article here.

A Post Falsely Says I Have STD’s.  Will You Remove The Posts?

We do not want false STD allegations posted on our site. If someone posts a false story claiming you have STDs, we will gladly consider removing that information but only if you provide proof (medical records) which show the claim is false. We will not consider any STD-based removal request which is not supported by recent medical test results.

If you email us copies of recent test results showing a negative test for the specific STD referenced in your post, we will gladly consider removing that information. To be clear – we absolutely will NOT post your records; we will keep them strictly confidential and will use them only for the purpose of determining whether to remove something from a post.

What About Cyber/Online Bullying? Can You Help?

Some critics of Dating Complaints have said this site encourages “cyberbullying”. In our view, this is kind of like saying that guns encourage murder. Well, guns certainly make murder easier, but without a person pulling the trigger, it’s not really the gun’s fault, is it?

Look — we do not want people to use this site for bullying. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite — if someone has done you wrong or treated you badly, you can post them here and let the world know about it. What better way to stop bullying than to give people a forum where bullies can be called out?

The real problem is that it’s very hard to tell what’s bullying and what’s not. Speech that might seem like bullying to one person is actually fair criticism to another. Any time someone criticizes you or says something unkind, it’s natural to feel bullied. But where should we draw the line? Should we prevent ALL speech that offends someone? If you think we’re making this more complicated than necessary, please keep in mind that many courts have found cyberbullying laws are unconstitutional.

In most cases, the staff here at Dating Complaints can’t get involved in deciding what is bullying vs. free speech. There’s just no way for us to take sides.

BUT NOTE — we understand that even though it’s hard to draw a clear line between fair criticism and unfair bullying, we know that bullying/harassment is still a serious problem with younger kids, especially those in high school. So, if you are a teacher or school administrator and you are aware of someone using our site to bully another student, please let us know ASAP by sending an email to dating-complaints-dmca@gingraslaw.com from your official school email account. Always include a link to the post and provide a short description of what’s happening. We can’t promise to help in every situation, but if we see something that just doesn’t look right, we won’t hesitate to get involved.

Does Dating Complaints Block Submissions? 

As of 2015, this has changed. Currently, Dating Complaints reviews new submissions on the “main” or “front” page, meaning the stuff you see at https://datingcomplaints.com/. Dating  Complaints generally does NOT screen submissions for non-main pages. Although he will still occasionally review and add comments to such pages. 

Also, we do NOT publish all submissions. We can and will block and/or remove content that we deem to be offensive, uninteresting, or otherwise inappropriate for this site.

P.S. We are sometimes contacted by people who ask us to block posts about them BEFORE they appear on the site. For example, a person may email us and say: “Hey my ex-boyfriend is threatening to post embarrassing photos of me on Dating Complaints. Can you please make sure not to publish anything he submits?”

Unfortunately, we cannot consider pre-publication requests like this. However, if you are the victim of revenge porn please review our policy discussed elsewhere on this page and let us know ASAP.

I am Under 18, and I live In California And I Recently Posted Something By Mistake..

The State of California recently passed a new “Online Eraser” law which is supposed to require websites to delete content posted by minors when asked by the original author. The new law became effective on January 1, 2015 and you can read a copy here.

For various different reasons, we do not believe that California’s “Online Eraser” law applies to DatingComplaints.com. However, until the courts have resolved this issue we are willing to consider removal requests from California residents who posted content on our site while they were under the age of 18, subject to appropriate proof.

If you would like to request removal under this law, please send an email to dating-complaints-dmca@gingraslaw.com and put “California Online Eraser” in the subject line. Please include a link to the page in question and a clear copy of your government issued-ID. We may also request additional information as needed to process your request.

Also, the law says we’re supposed to give “notice” of certain stuff, so here ya go, take notice of this —

22581. (a) An operator of an Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application directed to minors or an operator of an Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application that has actual knowledge that a minor is using its Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application shall do all of the following:

(1) Permit a minor who is a registered user of the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application to remove or, if the operator prefers, to request and obtain removal of, content or information posted on the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application by the user.

(2) Provide notice to a minor who is a registered user of the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application that the minor may remove or, if the operator prefers, request and obtain removal of, content or information posted on the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application by the registered user.

(3) Provide clear instructions to a minor who is a registered user of the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application on how the user may remove or, if the operator prefers, request and obtain the removal of content or information posted on the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application.

(4) Provide notice to a minor who is a registered user of the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application that the removal described under paragraph (1) does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information posted on the operator’s Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application by the registered user.

Can I Get The Real Name and IP Address Of the Person That Posted Me?

To get information about the person who submitted a post or comment, at a minimum you’re going to need a subpoena and in some cases you might have to obtain a court order. The exact process to use is way beyond the scope of this FAQ page, but here’s a helpful article that explains some of the legal issues involved: Litigating Civil Subpoenas to Identify Anonymous Internet Speakers, by Paul Alan Levy.

Although we can’t give you specific legal advice about the exact process you will need to follow, here are some policy points that you should know.

1.) DO NOT ask us to release author information unless you have actually filed a lawsuit over the post. Why? Two reasons – first, because we will require at least a subpoena (and possibly a court order) before we will release any information to you, and second, because in many cases the only contact information we have is the IP address used by the author of a post. An IP address by itself won’t help you identify the author. Instead, once you get the IP address from us, you are going to have to send a 2nd subpoena to the Internet Service Provider who issued that IP address, asking them to provide the name of the customer who was assigned that IP. As far as we know, major ISPs will not release any customer information without a subpoena, so if you haven’t filed a lawsuit (and thus can’t issue subpoenas), then there is really no point in us releasing any information to you.

2.) DatingComplaints.com is owned and operated by Dating Complaints, LLC which is based in New Mexico, and all of our records are located in New Mexico. Under New Mexico law and the First Amendment, information about our users is protected unless and until you show that you have valid claims against the author. New Mexico courts have established a specific set of rules explaining exactly what you need to do to meet this standard, see Mobilisa v. Doe, 217 Ariz. 103, 170 P.3d 712 (App. 2007).

NOTE – After reviewing your request for author information, we may require you to satisfy the requirements of Mobilisa, or we may allow you to follow a slightly less rigorous process when it’s extremely clear that you have valid claims against the author.

3.) We will NOT, under any circumstances, provide author information in response to a Rule 224 petition from Illinois. Each state has the right to control the manner and method by which records are produced within the borders of that state, but no state has the right to command the production of records from another state that violates the law of the place where the records are kept. See, e.g., Yelp, Inc. v. Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, Inc., 770 S.E.2d 440 (Va. 2015) (a Virginia court has no authority to order Yelp.com to produce records located in California) (citing extensive authority).

An Illinois Rule 224 petition may be an appropriate tool for obtaining records located in Illinois. However, Dirty World’s records are not located in Illinois, and Illinois Supreme Court 224 does not comply with the legal requirements established by Arizona law. For that reason, if you obtain an order purporting to require us to produce records under Rule 224, you should expect that we will not comply with the order, and we may, if necessary, file a lawsuit against you in Arizona seeking declaratory relief.

David Gingras’s Comment:

Normally, we charge for giving legal advice, but here’s the basic idea — if you want to sue someone who posted unlawful content on DatingComplaints.com, you can certainly do that. Before going down that road, you should really stop and talk to a lawyer who has extensive experience in online defamation cases. For one thing, a lot of people don’t realize that the moment you file a lawsuit, copies of records/pleadings from the case can and probably will be permanently published online by the news media and by websites that index court proceedings. 

This means that if you file a lawsuit trying to remove something from the Internet, your plan could backfire….badly. The most famous example is known as the “Streisand Effect“. 

Anyway, let’s assume you have decided to sue the author despite the risks. All you need is the author’s IP address and any other contact information. That’s fine — but we will not release author information just because you ask for it. Our users have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to remain anonymous unless and until you PROVE (not just claim) that they have done something unlawful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8kvC681Vw

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