Privacy

Yeah, that's pretty sketchy. It's not just that they didn't consent, but that it's questionable that they were even acting in OkCupid's interests, which they are supposed to be doing.

In September 2014, the CEO of Clarifai, Inc. e-mailed one of OkCupid’s founders requesting that Humor Rainbow give Clarifai, Inc. (i.e., the Data Recipient) access to large datasets of OkCupid photos. Despite not having any business relationship with Humor Rainbow, the Data Recipient sought Humor Rainbow’s assistance because each of OkCupid’s founders, including Humor Rainbow’s President and Match Group, LLC’s CEO, were financially invested in the Data Recipient.

In response to this request, Humor Rainbow gave the Data Recipient access to nearly three million OkCupid user photos. Humor Rainbow’s President and Chief Technology Officer were directly involved in facilitating the data transfer. In addition to user photos, Humor Rainbow shared other personal data with the Data Recipient, including each user’s demographic and location information.

Humor Rainbow never executed a formal agreement or set forth restrictions governing the Data Recipient’s access to, or use of, the OkCupid user data. The Data Recipient did not pay for the data and never provided any services to Humor Rainbow or on behalf of OkCupid.

That is, that sounds like they were basically using substantial amounts of company assets to benefit themselves rather than the company that they were responsible to.