Are you not on Tinder, but curious about whether someone else is? A new site promises to tell you if that person is using Tinder — for a price.
For $4.99 (for three searches), SwipeBuster will hunt for users that match a given name, gender, and location. If the person you’ve searched is indeed on Tinder, you’ll be able to see the last time he or she was active, and whether or not that person is looking at men or women. And while the purpose of SwipeBuster would seemingly be to expose cheaters, its anonymous founder claimed in an interview with Vanity Fair that his aim is more high-minded.
“Not only are people oversharing and putting out a lot of information about themselves, but companies are also not doing enough to let people know they’re doing it,” he explained. So basically, this guy is trying to show that Tinder isn't a particularly secure app — and/or that by exposing personal information, we may realize how vulnerable that information is to exposure in the first place. Since Tinder is linked to both your location and your Facebook account, it does make it hard to remain secretive (and nearly impossible to remain anonymous).
But even if you buy the founder's defense of SwipeBuster, there’s a hole in his logic: For many Tinder users, being searchable by first name only isn’t a big deal. And if you’re single and open about your sexual orientation, the idea that someone might use SwipeBuster to look you up probably isn't bothersome.
Whether SwipeBuster will lead to better app privacy or will just be a way to expose cheaters, it remains to be seen. But if you are using the site to check in on someone, take note: It's possible the Tinder user you’ve tracked down on SwipeBuster really only wanted to see if Bernie Sanders was a match.
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