| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 22, 2000 in Pasadena, California |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California |
| Website | eharmony.com |
| Alexa rank | 2100[1] |
eHarmony is an online dating website that matches single men and women for long-term relationships. To optimize the matching process, eHarmony operates eHarmony Labs, a relationship research facility, and publishes eHarmony Advice, a relationship advice site. eHarmony, which was launched on August 22, 2000, is based in Santa Monica, California; it has members in more than 150 countries and operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. The company is privately-held, with investors that include Technology Crossover Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Fayez Sarofim & Co.
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eHarmony was founded by Neil Clark Warren, a psychologist, author of relationship advice books, and Christian theologian, along with Greg Forgatch, Warren's son-in-law. In the late 1990s, after more than 35 years of work as a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, Warren decided to test his theory that certain characteristics can predict compatibility and lead to more satisfying relationships. After three years of research in collaboration with Dr. Galen Buckwalter, Warren developed a model of compatibility that is now the basis of the company’s matching system.[2]
The service was financed with a $3 million investment from Fayez Sarofim & Co. and individual investors.[3] In 2004 eHarmony received the fourth largest venture capital infusion of that year from Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures.[4] With its subscription model, the service has been profitable since then and reached a milestone in 2009 as it exceeded $1.0 billion in cumulative revenue.[5]
The service launched its matching service for singles in 2000.[6] Initially it marketed itself primarily to Christian sites, touting itself as "based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren."[7]
Since then, the company has had about 33 million members,[8] and, as of 2008, about 15,000 people take the eHarmony questionnaire each day.[9] After finding a match on eHarmony, Harris Interactive states that an average of 542 eHarmony members in the United States marry every day.[10]
eHarmony advertises that compatibility is the core tenet at eHarmony. Former CEO Greg Waldorf stated, “It's not about matching people who like certain hobbies ... it's about compatibility. You go on to the site and tell us about you, rather than about what you want."[11] eHarmony seeks to differentiate its matching service by what it calls a scientific approach to a deeply personal and emotional process.[12]
Prospective eHarmony members complete a proprietary questionnaire that purports to determine characteristics, beliefs, values, emotional health and skills. Matching algorithms, the basis of the matching system Warren and Buckwalter developed, which the company believes matches people's core traits and values to replicate the traits of happy couples, use these answers to match members with compatible users.[13]
A new, complex software technology not only evaluates the answers to the questionnaire but also each user's behavioral data such as average time spent on the site.[14] The software analyzes 500 variables to further optimize the matches and, as a result, there has been a 34% increase in communication between users in the past year.[15]. Buckwalter says that the compatibility system rests a lot on commonality, for their belief is that "Opposites attract, then they attack." [16]
Its research methods its models for compatibility matching have not been submitted to any peer-reviewed journals for evaluation and publication. However, in 2004, eHarmony's research director, Dr. Steve Carter, presented a paper at the 16th Annual American Psychological Society (APS) meeting. In the paper presented, Carter compared eHarmony couples married for more than five years with a control group, using the Dyadic Adjustment Scale(DAS), a measure of couple satisfaction.
His results showed that "over 90% of eHarmony couples had marriage quality scores which were above average when compared to couples who had begun their relationships elsewhere. eHarmony couples were more than twice as likely to be in highly successful marriages than non-eHarmony couples. Not only are eHarmony couples 35% more likely than other married couples to report that they enjoy spending time together, but we found they are nearly twice as likely to report that their marriages are 'extremely happy' or better versus other recently married couples."[17] It should be noted that the study provided no data on the eHarmony failure rate for comparison. No independent studies of eHarmony's methods or success rates have been published.
After answering a 258-question profile, some would-be customers are frustrated when they are not accepted for the matching process. About one in five people are not suitable for the service for reasons including that the user is currently married or has been married more than four times, is under the minimum age of 21, provides inconsistent answers in the profile, or fails its "dysthymia scale."[20] The company has also been criticized for not publishing their customer support phone number on its website.[21] Finally, there have been complaints that the procedure to unsubscribe from the service is unfair or misleading, as well as reports of credit cards continuing to be charged following subscription expiry.[21]
On November 18, 2009, in response to eight complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority requested that a UK television advert for eHarmony be amended for two reasons. Firstly, the advert used a statistic generated from results of an online survey of 7,000 people, carried out in 2007, which seemed to show that 2% of Americans who married in that year met on eHarmony. The ASA acknowledged that the evidence appeared to back up that statistic,[22] but it ruled that the ad implied a definitive figure of marriages between people who met via eHarmony in the past year, rather than an estimate based on an online survey in 2007. Secondly, the ASA ruled that the ad did not make clear that in 20% of cases it was unable to find a match for people who registered.[23] Therefore, the ASA asked eHarmony to clarify these two points in their advertising.
In response to the ruling, Sean Cornwell, eHarmony's Vice President for International Markets, said: "We believe the TV ads accurately portrayed the eHarmony service, but we respect the ASA’s request for more detail. We are amending the ads to indicate that eHarmony does have some eligibility requirements for users and to clarify that the claim that an average of 236 eHarmony users married each day in America is based on a study conducted by Harris Interactive for eHarmony in 2007. The ASA did not disagree with the results of the research."[23]
Initially eHarmony did not offer same-sex matches, but now it does through its separate service, Compatible Partners.[24] Warren originally explained that he had done extensive research on heterosexual marriage but does not know enough about homosexual relationships to do same-sex match-making which "calls for some very careful thinking. Very careful research."[24] He also noted that eHarmony promotes heterosexual marriage, adding that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states, "We don't really want to participate in something that's illegal."[24] In a separate interview, Warren went into more detail on his own views, noting that "cities like San Francisco, Chicago or New York... they could shut [eHarmony] down so fast. We don't want to make enemies out of them. But at the same time, I take a real strong stand against same-sex marriage, anywhere that I can comment on it."[25]
eHarmony's lack of same-sex matching options prompted lawsuits claiming that eHarmony violated laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.[26] As part of the settlement of a New Jersey case,[27] eHarmony launched a partner website called Compatible Partners providing same-sex match-making "for serious couples"[28][29] Theodore B. Olson, an attorney for eHarmony, said that even though the company believed the complaint was "an unfair characterization of our business," it chose to settle because of the unpredictable nature of litigation.[30] In 2010, eHarmony settled a separate class-action lawsuit filed in California that alleged illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation. The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, agreed to allow access to both its gay and straight dating sites with a single subscription, to display its gay dating services more prominently and to establish a settlement fund to pay people who can show they were harmed by the company's policies.[31][32]
Compatible Partners has attracted over 200,000 registrants.[33] Garcia also notes that, like eHarmony, Compatible Partners attracts high-quality customers: "Because of the price tag and the emphasis on long-term relationships...Compatible Partners' users are seen as quite desirable." [34]
After approval by the questionnaire, eHarmony begins to match members regardless of their subscription status. Any member's list of matches does not indicate which members are paying or non-paying[35] or which members are active or inactive, [36] moving some paying members to request communication with non-paying members who cannot respond to requests until subscribing to the service.