Background checks

Panel members:

Tal Moise, CEO - Verified Person
Ed Raines, Dir. Govermental Affairs - Rapsheets
John Cardillo, CEO - Sentry
Jeff Collins, CEO - Integrated Screening
Peter bianco, CEO - Trufina

Trufina, Rapsheets, Verified Person, Sentry and Integrated Screening all attempted to differentiate their service offerings. Courthouse runners, adjudication process and unintelligible acronyms were the order of the day. Whatever differentiation exists between the services was lost to most of the audience, especially when they kept starting their sentences with, "Just like so-and-so-said..." It became apparent quickly that the industry needs to be thoroughly informed about the finer points of identity verification to begin to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the players entering the market.

Choicepoint, the 800-lb gorilla, acquired Rapsheets over the summer. Ed Raines came across as the smooth, connected good old boy, while the others sounded like typical Valley startups or law enforcement types. You are what you are, but most of the panel should have had their marketing folks to the talking for them.

Marshall Dye from Match provided valuable insights and held some feet to the fire during the background checks panel, especially towards Raines, who, it was later found out, supports the legislation put forth by True. Learn more about TRUE's efforts to make Internet dating safer here. Perhaps the three different legislation sessions will culminate in an industry association being started to address these issues.

Disappointment was quite evident that True.com is attempting to push industry legislation as a marketing strategy. A tactically brilliant maneuver that may do more harm than good to the industry overall. Most dating site executives vehemently oppose government getting involved, preferring to take matters into their own hands. I did not know that True.com founder Herb Vest lost his father to the hands of a murderer when he was two years old.

Don't think of customers as criminals, I've been using the term reputation management and others are using identity verification, or identity management, which are more palatable than the phrase "background checks."

Industry needs to be educated about background checks before they can make a decision to implement or not. Unless clearly described and perfectly marketed, adoption rates will be low. Women will drive men to use the service.

What was clear is that Identify verification is a deterrent to criminals. As Raines said, "You'll never get all the bad guys."

People who have mistyped social security numbers will have to go through a lengthy process to right the error. I'm not sure how that's going to go over with the general online dating population even if each services promised swift and speedy response to customer service issues.

Any identify verification company trying to enter the online dating market better have other markets to fall back on. One or two will grab deals with the top tier sites and leave the rest to smaller sites looking for the lowest price point and can't afford 4 or 5-figure integration fees.

The next session was Moderated by Emily Hackett, Executive Director of the Internet Alliance. I wish the all the members from the previous panel had stuck around for this. Perhaps the panel should have been named Industry Self-Regulation instead.

Hackett's best quote was "You've all been caught flat-footed." Now is the time to mobilize and centralize the voices of the industry.

Match's Dyer, "people will rely on your identity verification services, and they will be harmed, and they will sue."

I was amazed to learn that there has never been a lawsuit brought against any of the dating services represented by the panel.

What will happen to the free services? Will members get verified/Trufina'd/background checked at each off the services they belong to?

It was weird to hear people mention penal codes, degrees of assault and then follow up post-panel with color commentary on the data providers used by the panelists. Hank Asher, Iran-Contra drug smuggling and covert operations brought things to a new level of intrigue.

SafeDate was the only company to hand out t-shirts. The parent company has been around for 10 years and they know they're a late to the party yet they have some interesting ideas about other markets to go after.