A college student is suing dating app Meete, alleging it scraped her TikTok videos without consent and used them to target men specifically in her dormitory through geofencing technology. If the allegations are true, this is a masterclass in how not to build a dating app.
Let's break down what's allegedly happening here, because it combines pretty much every creepy tech trend into one lawsuit.
First, the complaint alleges Meete scraped publicly available TikTok videos and used them to create profiles on their dating platform without users' knowledge or consent. That's data misappropriation, and it's been litigated before with mixed results. Just because something is publicly visible doesn't mean you can repurpose it commercially.
Second, and more concerning, is the geofencing allegation. The lawsuit claims Meete used location data to specifically target men in the plaintiff's college dormitory with her profile. That's not broad demographic targeting or city-level location matching. That's precision targeting to a specific building.
Think about the privacy implications. Someone creates content on one platform, and it gets automatically weaponized on another platform to attract attention from people in their immediate physical proximity. Without their knowledge. On a dating app.
The technical capability exists to do this. Geofencing is widely used in advertising and apps. You can absolutely target users within a few hundred feet of a specific location. Video scraping and AI-powered profile creation are also established (if ethically questionable) technologies.
What makes this particularly problematic is the safety risk. Dating apps already struggle with security and harassment issues. Adding covert geofencing to college dorms - where many people live in close, often public quarters - escalates those risks significantly.
From a legal standpoint, Meete potentially faces multiple issues. Privacy violations. Data misappropriation. Possibly violations of state and federal laws around electronic surveillance. And that's before we get into consumer protection laws about deceptive practices.
The company will likely argue that users consented to data collection via terms of service, that publicly posted content on TikTok is fair game, and that location-based matching is a standard feature of dating apps. Those arguments have varying merit, but none of them really address the core creepiness of the alleged conduct.
