Our Commitment to Privacy and Users’ Control of Their Data
As the leading social networking platform for anyone who wants to connect with the LGBTQ+ community, our app serves over 13 million monthly active users in almost every country in the world. In many of these countries, the Grindr app is the only safe way for our users to discover, share, and navigate their communities. Protecting our users’ interests and putting them in control of their personal data are top priorities for us and critical to the success of our business.
Norway’s Privacy Appeals Board recently issued a decision regarding a legacy user consent process we used several years ago, before key regulatory developments interpreting the application of GDPR. We strongly disagree with the Board’s decision and are evaluating our options, including asking Norway’s courts to reverse the administrative agency. At the same time, we share the Norwegian Board’s commitment to privacy and want to provide an overview of how Grindr addresses this critical area.
Privacy could not be more important to our users. That’s why certain features, like giving users the choice to decide what information to include in their profile, including not requiring a profile photo, have been built into the app from day one. We’ve also built privacy and safety components directly into numerous parts of the product, such as our private albums that enable private sharing of photos between users. As we build new features, we continue to integrate privacy into every facet of the design to safeguard user information, which is what our users have come to expect.
Since the period at issue in the decision, and under new ownership and new management, Grindr has invested heavily to adopt industry-leading privacy practices and tools to protect and empower our users by giving them more control over the data they publicly disclose.
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We have a dedicated Privacy team that works across the company to advance our commitment to privacy, and we use a leading privacy consent management platform, powered by One Trust, which enables users to decide whether and how their data can be shared with ad partners.
Grindr has never allowed for targeted advertising by profiling our users or based on special categories of personal data such as ethnicity, political views, or sexual orientation. One of the most common pieces of feedback we hear from our users is a desire for more relevant advertising. Yet one of the reasons the advertising users see is not always relevant to them is because, contrary to standard industry practices, Grindr explicitly chooses not to share data on users’ age, gender, or location with advertisers even if the user opts in to get personalized ads.
Advertising on our platform, while a small portion of our total revenue, helps defray the costs of Grindr’s free offering, which includes many more features than the free products of our industry peers. Currently, more than 85% of Grindr’s revenue comes from purchases of subscriptions and add-on products from just 7% of our total users.
Grindr is proud to support and connect the global LGBTQ+ community. We believe regulators should treat Grindr users the same way they treat users of other dating apps that cater largely to the straight community.
We look forward to continuing our commitment to privacy as we work to serve our users and create a world where our community is free, equal and included.
