ENGL-1020 E
Reading Response 5
3/17/16

As much as society depends on the internet, it is no surprise that companies want to take advantage of all the information than can gather. Everyone can agree that big name companies, such as Google, Facebook and OkCupid, get information through the internet, but the controversy lies in the methods they use to obtain the information. OkCupid is an online dating site that has well over four million people on its site every month. During an interview, OkCupid’s co-founder Christian Rudder, was questioned about the ways some of the experiments that the company recently did on some of its customers. The experiments were based mostly on deception. For example, they told people who is and who is not a good match for them, and how much a picture can influence a person’s first impression of them. In the interview, it was referred to as “the power of suggestion”(765), and this is where most of the people had problems with OkCupid. Being unwillingly manipulated and being a part of some sort of experiment without their consent is defiantly something that scares most people today, but I believe that in some cases, it helps websites do the jobs that they are supposed to do better. I would feel a lot better about using an online dating site if I knew that their method of finding your match was backed by some proof. Regardless of what Web site you are looking at, just know that every click you make is being recorded, and that you are always being watched.

Works Cited
"It's Not OK Cupid: Co-Founder Defends User Experiments." WNYC. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.