San Francisco, Feb 9 (IANS): Following a new report questioning Tinder's practice of charging older users "substantially more", the popular dating app has said it will no longer charge older users more to use Tinder+, media reports say.
The report, from Mozilla and Consumers International, detailed just how much Tinder+ pricing can vary based on users' age, reports Engadget.
The report relied on "mystery shoppers" in six countries -- the US, Netherlands, New Zealand, Korea, India and Brazil -- who signed up for Tinder+ and reported back how much the app charged for the subscription.
According to the report, Tinder users between the ages of 30 and 49 were charged an average of 65.3 per cent more than their younger counterparts in every country except Brazil.
Tinder's age-based pricing for Tinder, which gives users access to premium features like unlimited likes, has long been a source of controversy for the dating app, the report said.
When it launched, the company said it charged older users more because younger people were more "budget-constrained". Since then, the dating app has been hit with at least one class-action lawsuit over the practice.
But though Tinder had pledged to end the practice in some areas, like California where the class action suit originated, the company continued to offer different rates in many countries.
The latest report from Consumers International highlighted how much the dating app's subscription pricing could vary.
In New Zealand, where the mystery shoppers were quoted a total of 25 different prices, the lowest quoted price was $4.95, while the highest was $24.54, according to the report.
In the Netherlands, there were 31 different prices, with the lowest at $4.45 and the highest at $25.95.
Now, Tinder said it plans to abandon its age-based pricing altogether. In a blog post, the dating all said younger users were offered subscriptions at different rates to "make Tinder affordable for those in school or early in their careers".
The company said it ended the practice in the US, Australia and the UK, and that it plans on "eliminating age-based pricing for all of our members in all markets by the end of the second quarter this year".