The action comes after a years-long investigation launched in 2019, prompted by reporting that Clarifai built its training dataset using OkCupid profile photos. Court documents show the AI company directly requested access to the data from OkCupid executives, despite the platform’s policies restricting such use.
“We’re collecting data now and just realized that OKCupid must have a HUGE amount of awesome data for this,” Clarifai founder and CEO Matthew Zeiler wrote in an email to OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn, according to court filings.
Under the settlement finalized last month, OkCupid and Match Group did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to restrictions on how they describe and manage user data. The FTC said the companies are now “permanently prohibited from misrepresenting or assisting others in misrepresenting” their data practices.
While the agency does not have authority to issue fines for first-time violations of this kind, the case underscores how data collected for consumer services was repurposed for AI development without user awareness. Clarifai’s confirmation that it deleted both the images and the resulting models suggests the training data had been retained for years after its initial use.
The episode highlights ongoing scrutiny of how AI systems are trained, particularly when datasets originate from user-generated content on consumer platforms.
This analysis is based on reporting from Engadget.
Image courtesy of Unsplash.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
