IMPERFECT MATCH: They gave it a shot, but dating app conglomerate Match Group is finally calling it quits with the Princeton Review. Match Group, an InterActiveCorp (IAC) company that owns dating apps including Match.com, Tinder and OkCupid, announced plans to sell the college test prep service to Korean edtech company ST Unitas, according to Barron’s.
Many have questioned why company would bundle a dating site with an education service in the first place. A few bloggers have suggested that the potential access to student (read: young people’s) data as an asset. Over the three years since IAC bought Princeton Review, a growing number of concerns from reporters about what the company is doing with that data have bubbled up. Some have pointed out that simply being a Match Group company makes Princeton Review users vulnerable to new hackers. Others, like The Root’s political editor Jason Johnson, suggests that through Princeton Review, Match can “collect data on kids to improve the targeting, marketing and analysis of dating platforms.”
A Princeton Review representative told InvestorPlace last year: “All of our data is stored and managed completely independently of any other Match company. Match businesses have no access to our data and The Princeton Review has no access to Match data.”
On the decision to sell the Princeton Review—which has seen four different owners since 2012—Match Group CEO Gregg Blatt told Barron’s that “it is increasingly clear to us that its differences from our core dating businesses meaningfully exceed its similarities.” The Match Group’s Q4 revenue fell short of expectations, resulting in a dip in its stock value.
