Tinder and Hinge’s parent company Match Group has “without question” been acting as a monopoly, founder of the world’s largest Muslim dating app Muzz told Arabian Business after losing a trademark appeal in the UK on Thursday.
Younas’ comments come after a years’ long legal battle between two companies that resulted in Muzz having to change its company name and lose its trademark in a UK appeal on Thursday.
“Match group have over 50 different dating app properties, and allegedly have over 50 percent ownership of the global dating market. They use this power and aggressive defence of abstract patents to intimidate other players in the space – focusing on those who don’t have the resources to defend themselves.”
The world’s largest Muslim dating app Muzz on Thursday lost its trademark in a UK appeal against global dating conglomerate Match Group. Despite settling in the US and rebranding from muzmatch to Muzz in May last year, the UK appeal failed, and the original judgement was upheld.
Muzz has now called upon the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Match Group’s anti-competitive behaviour.
The dating app for Muslims was “aggressively pursued” by Match Group with multiple trademark infringement lawsuits in the UK and US, according to Younas, who has accused the company of setting a “dangerous precedent” in an interview with Arabian Business.
In a statement released on Thursday Muzz said it believes the judges neglected to consider their eleven years of “honest concurrent use” of muzmatch alongside Match Group, and the “distinct lack of confusion between the two companies.”
“The dangerous precedent that we feel has been set here is the ability for large conglomerates to begin to enforce trademarks on the common English language – and descriptive generic words such as match. All of our use of our brand since 2011 clearly showed use of the word match in a descriptive sense.
“Our intent was never to link ourselves with Match.com – as such a link would actually be harmful to our business. For the courts to see otherwise is deeply disappointing. This battle has shown the tactics that large monopoly players will use to stifle and quash competition with a view to draining their resources.
“Evidence shown in the case was settlement agreements proposed by Match Group which ‘allowed’ the use of the trademark MUZMATCH only as long as we did not sell to a competitor. This is surely the clearest sign that complete and dominant control of this market is what Match Group was really concerned about. Trade commissions and those in antitrust should have such behaviours on their radar.”
Match Group attempted to acquire the Muslim dating app “four times for up to $35 million,” Younas said, adding that they had filed a complaint against Muzz after not getting the acquisition and instead acquired another competitor, Hawaya, which they then shut down in February 2023.
“This is all linked and all part of their strategy of control and dominance of the dating sector,’” Younas said.
Following the UK appeal, Match group filed another lawsuit against Muzz in the US state of Texas over a “generic feature found on all dating apps – the mechanics of two people liking and matching together,” the statement read.
“Note the playbook they used against us, they also attempted to use against Bumble – a much larger player with much deeper pockets. They attempted to purchase them, failed, then sought to sue them in the US on nearly identical grounds,” Younas added.
Muzz has viewed Match Group’s actions as a calculated attempt by the dating conglomerate to maintain their global dominance by litigating smaller competitors. The group has a history of carrying out such attempts, most notable of which is their pursuit of popular dating app Bumble in 2017 and 2018.
Younas and his team have spent several hours working on and preparing for the case, appeal and the new US lawsuit.
“It has been extremely draining from a personal professional perspective,” he said.
“The costs have been mounting – and now are approaching $2 million given the implications of losing the UK appeal.”
“As a business we have operated in a lean efficient manner, and whilst this is not fatal, it is certainly a gross waste of resources which could better have been spent on improving the product, as well as contributing to our annual charitable campaigns where we aim to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for much needed causes around the world.”
He warned that the new US lawsuit would not just be a concern for Muzz, but for all dating apps that are not operating under Match Group.
“Match Group have spent years pushing through a rather generic abstract patent which attempts to patent the process of matching two people – a principle used in nearly every dating app out there. They managed to get this approved in November 2022 and we believe we are now the first competitor they are attempting to intimidate with this as the basis.”
“In terms of the business itself, thankfully our focused approach has led us to tremendous growth, as we approach 9 million members globally and internal records are being broken every week.”
Tinder failing to adequately serve single Muslims
The dating app founder said that from a religious point of view and in terms of users’ expectations, Tinder had failed to serve the Muslim market.
“Generally speaking – Muslims don’t date. We marry. Tinder is geared towards casual relationships and doesn’t have any religious focus of any sort or such filtering abilities.”
Younas added that his dating app “unashamedly” matches Muslims for the sake of marriage “in a way that respects their faith, culture and traditions.”
“Privacy and modesty are key parts of our offering, as well as the ability to add a chaperone to the process.”
The app enables users to filter their options based on “very specific” religious and ethnic groups and places a particular emphasis on religious attributes such as your sect and how often you pray.
“All are unique to our app vs Match Group properties.”