Public Statement from Global Personals
By Jon Kuhrt
first published on http://resistanceandrenewal.net/
This week I received two letters from Global Personals lawyers. One invited me to a meeting and the other included the following statement:
Global Personals Ltd is a software and services provider.
Our business creates the platform upon which thousands of online dating sites with millions of members around the world can be built/created. The majority of these sites are individually and privately owned and managed by their website owners.
Whilst we provide services such as the dating software and customer care, including monitoring of activity within these sites to protect users, the individual website owners are solely responsible for their website brand, design, marketing and/or advertising.
It is not for us to have an opinion upon the motivations of people who choose to subscribe to any of the dating websites operating on our network; nor upon those who choose to build an online dating site using our platform, as long as they operate within the law to only involve consenting adults.
Global Personals Ltd, 4 October 2011
In this statement Global Personals are trying to distance themselves from the websites they run and focus everything on the brand partner they are working with. Their lawyers actually state that Global Personals “has very little to do with the site complained of by you and your agents.”
But the phrase “very little to do with the site” contradicts the information on the affairsdating website where under ‘Company Information’ it states the following:
affairsdating.net.com is run by Global Personals Limited, a UK company specializing in the development of online dating websites for the singles community. For all media enquiries, please email [email protected], who will be able to assist. This site is powered by WhiteLabelDating.com, a powerful cross-platform dating solution which can be integrated with other websites.
According to the actual website in question, Global Personals ‘run’ the affairsdating website and it is ‘powered’ by their systems. If you have any enquiries about affairsdating where do you go? Yep, you’re right: Global Personals.
Is it acceptable to claim that you have no responsibility over a website when the site itself says that you run it and you provide all the technical framework, the service support and customer care? ’Affairsdating’ is just a brand name – its not even a registered company and could never do any of this without Global Personals.
Receiving long letters from lawyers is not fun but its important that we focus on what is really going on in this situation. Global Personals run and profit from websites which encourage people to cheat on their partners.
What we are doing now
A wide range of organisations and people are involved in this and we had a great meeting last night to discuss how we will be moving forward with the campaign. We’ll be announce some developments and a new Facebook page very soon. Please get involved – we have an opportunity to show that faithfulness matters and we don’t want people to make money from breaking up relationships.
Jon Kuhrt works with people affected by homelessness, offending and chronic addictions at the West London Mission. He, his wife and three children are part of Streatham Baptist Church and he is a member of the Christians on the Left. He likes football…but loves cricket.