The FBI has found no evidence that the gunman who left 49 people dead in an Orlando nightclub had gay lovers or used gay dating apps, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Omar Mateen, 29, carried out the shooting at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub, on June 12.

Mateen, who was killed at the scene, was married with a young son. He told police that he was acting in allegiance to ISIS.

Several regulars at Pulse have come forward saying that they had seen Mateen at the club before and that he had regularly used the gay dating apps Grindr and Jack'd.

A man, identified only as "Miguel," told Univision that he and Mateen were "friends with benefits," and that they had met up between 15 and 20 times.

FBI agents have looked into Mateen's laptop and cellphone, but have so far found nothing indicating that Mateen was gay, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The FBI will continue to investigate Mateen, but believes that the men who claimed that Mateen was gay may have not been credible.

SEE ALSO: REPORTS: Orlando shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked, used multiple gay dating apps

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch House Democrats shout down Paul Ryan during a gun-control protest

Philosopher and Author of "A Course of Love," Alain de Botton explores the harsh reality of 'love at first sight' in the digital age.

Follow TI: On Facebook

SEE ALSO: The cool reason celebrities are wearing this scarf

Join the conversation about this story »

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Catholic archbishop of Dublin has removed trainee priests from Ireland's largest seminary over allegations of widespread use of the gay sex app Grindr and the failure of the authorities to properly investigate it.

The move is the latest scandal to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland, once the defining influence on public life, but now humbled by reports of child sex abuse stretching back decades and of church leaders' complicity in covering them up.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said a series of anonymous allegations about a gay sex culture at the Maynooth seminary, where over 50 students are training to be priests, had been compounded by the college authorities' failure to investigate.

"One (allegation) is that there is a homosexual, gay culture, that students have been using an app called Grindr, which would be inappropriate for seminarians and not just because they are going to be celibate priests," Martin said in an interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE on Tuesday.

"If this is going on a large scale in the seminary and it hasn't been noticed in the seminary, then there is something wrong," he said.

He said there were also allegations that students who had spoken to the authorities had been dismissed from the seminary. A series of anonymous allegations and counter-allegations had poisoned the culture at the college, he added.

The president of the seminary, Hugh Connolly, said no investigation had taken place because there had been no official complaint.

"It is very important that anything we do, we do in natural justice, in other words, that we will always act only when we have clarity and when we have grounds to act," Connolly told RTE. "Broadly speaking, I think the atmosphere is a very good one." 

(Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Join the conversation about this story »

An Italian banker strangled a Met Police officer at a sex party before dissolving his body in a bath of acid, the Old Bailey heard.

Stefano Brizzi, 50, allegedly murdered PC Gordon Semple at his Bermondsey flat after meeting through gay dating app Grindr for “extreme” sadomasochistic sex. 

After strangling the 59-year-old officer, Brizzi used a saw to chop up the body, disposing of some parts in the River Thames, the court heard. 

When neighbours complained of a “revolting” smell coming from the flat, police were called and caught Brizzi trying to dispose of the rest of the body. 

“Inside the flat, the officers were met with a sight that must have been beyond anything for which they had been trained”, said prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC. 

“In the bathroom, the bath was full of what turned out to be acid."

Mr Aylett added that flesh was found in the bath. 

He added: "On the bathroom floor were plastic buckets containing human remains.”

Quizzed about what happened, Brizzi allegedly told the officer: “I’ve tried to dissolve the body...I’ve killed a police officer.

“I killed him last week. I met him on Grindr and I killed him. Satan told me to.”

Mr Aylett warned the jury as he opened the case: “The nature of the evidence, I am afraid, is such as to call for strong stomachs as well as broad minds.” 

The court heard Brizzi invited PC Semple, from Greenhithe, Dartford, to his flat on the Peabody Estate in Southwark Street on April 1, despite him being on duty. 

Mr Aylett said the officer was openly gay and in a relationship, but was “sexually promiscuous” and used Grindr to meet other men. 

He said: “The sexual activity that followed might be of an extreme nature: domination, bondage, and much else besides. It is also the case that drugs were often involved.”

PC Semple went to meet Brizzi on April 1, texting that he was “free now for hot dirty sleazy session”, and together they invited others to a gay sex orgy. 

Mr Aylett said two men said they were interested in joining in, but one was put off by the possible use of drugs. 

Mr Aylett said an associate of Brizzi told police he was a fan of hit TV show Breaking Bad.

"Stefano Brizzi had been obsessed with the American television show Breaking Bad", he told the jury.

"In the series a chemistry teacher named Walter White starts producing crystal meth.

"At first this is done to pay for medical care but he soon decades into the criminal underworld - after poisoning a rival White ends up dissolving the body in acid."

Jurors have heard Brizzi was hooked on crystal meth and had lost his job at Morgan Stanley when the drugs were affecting his lifestyle. 

The other man, known in court as CD, arrived at Brizzi’s home later in the afternoon, but when he pressed the buzzer he was told: “We are having a situation here. Someone fell ill but we’re taking care of it. So our party is cancelled.”

Mr Aylett said: “CD must have arrived at the front door of the block at the very point at which Gordon Semple was meeting his death inside the defendant’s flat.” 

The court heard that Brizzi later told the police: “I was right in the middle of strangling Gordon and I said to - he was right at the door - and I said to him: ‘Look, this is not the right time now, people are falling ill on drugs and it’s a mess’. 

“Over the next few days, the defendant’s neighbours became increasingly conscious of a revolting smell that was coming from the defendant’s flat.”

The discovery of PC Semple’s remains was not made until April 7, a week after he had been killed, when Brizzi answered the door wearing only sunglasses and his underpants. 

A missing persons search was launched for the Scottish-born officer before the eventual discovery that he was dead. 

Brizzi, of the Peabody Estate, in Southwark Street, Bermondsey, has pleaded guilty to obstructing a coroner by disposing of the body, but denies murder.

The trial continues.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's why Boeing 747s have a giant hump in the front

As the dating app Tinder turns five, new research shows men who regularly use the app have more body image concerns and lower self-esteem.

The research found Tinder users reported lower levels of satisfaction with their faces and higher levels of shame about their bodies. And users were also more likely to view their bodies as sexual objects.

This is hardly surprising given that Tinder’s "evaluative factors" have the potential to intensify preexisting cultural beauty ideals. The app’s "swipe right to dismiss" facility, along with the limited number of words a user can write on their profile means appearance take center stage.

In other words, the more conventionally attractive your photos are, the more likely you are to be clicked, swiped or hit upon by other users.

But whether men use Tinder or not, most will report dissatisfaction with some aspect of their appearance. This could be anything from height, body hair, muscularity, skin tautness, shoe size, penis size, facial symmetry, head hair amount and more. Sadly there are few areas of the body men do not find fault with.

The body beautiful?

Over the last few decades boys’ and men’s appearances have come under increasing scrutiny. This is largely because in the 1980s businesses finally started exploiting a relatively untapped market: the appearance insecurities of men.

To demonstrate - today men are sold anti-cellulite cream for their pecs, hair transplants for their facial hair and "manscara" for their eyes. Then there are the boys’ action dolls that have gained muscle and lost body fat with each successive edition. Add this to the fact that 80% of the men featured in popular media such as Men’s Health magazine are of a muscular body build – with many of these models taking drastic measures in the weeks leading up to photos shoots to make sure they look lean.

These models also tend to have a full head of hair and symmetrical faces. The same goes for porn sites– where almost all of the men featured are equally ripped and stereotypically "handsome."

It’s unsurprising then that boys today feel they are growing up in a world which focuses heavily upon their appearance.

Of course, this is a problem that has plagued women and girls for decades. And in the way that this has impacted girls for so long, now this pressure is impacting on boys’ well-being.

One recent study found almost one in five boys had resorted to diet pills, purging, skipping meals, steroids or tanning products to change their appearance.

"White washing"

But beyond appearance pressures, dating apps are doubly damaging because they often operate in a sphere where sexual racism is commonplace.

The dating app OKCupid recently analyzed sexual racism among 1 million of its male site users. The company found that compared to black, Asian or minority ethnic users, white users got more messages. White users were also found to be less likely to reply or match with users of a different race to themselves, and more likely to question interracial marriage.

Recent research from Australia also found that 15% of gay men on the dating app Grindr included sexual racism on their profiles. This was more likely to be the case if the profile user was white, and if the user held broader racist views.

I too have noticed gay men who write offensive terms that specify race preferences on their profiles – such as "Black=block,""no gaysians" or even "no chocolate or rice." In its terms and conditions Grindr bans offensive speech. Which is in part why, three years ago, I started a Twitter account, @GrindrRacism to encourage Grindr to remove offensive profiles. Disappointingly Grindr has often been slow to act though – meaning sexual racism is still present on the app.

Dating elite

Of course apps aren’t the cause of racism around sexual preferences.

Instead like appearance pressures, users are influenced by what’s going on in wider society. By not tackling those problems in society, however, – for example cracking down on offensive speech – apps can act as enablers for racism and insecurity.

So while in some ways, these apps have brought our dating lives into the 21st century – where casual sex is more accepted and where gay men can meet other gay men without being imprisoned– in other ways, they also remind me of the 1950s, a time when shops would hang "No Blacks"signs in their doorways and when magazines like Playboy relentlessly objectified women’s appearances.

Ultimately given that more people are using dating apps than ever before, they need to work for everyone – not just those who are "attractive" or white.

SEE ALSO: Tinder will now let you see who likes you — but there's a major catch

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Terrifying NASA footage from space shows the giant Hurricane Harvey about to slam the Texas coast

• Grindr shared users' HIV status and dates of their most recent tests with two third-party companies, a BuzzFeed News report revealed.
• This data can be linked to users' locations, phone IDs, and email addresses.
• The company has since said it would stop sharing the user information, but defended its previous data-sharing as "industry practice."

Grindr has defended its sharing of users' HIV statuses and locations with third parties as "industry practice."

The LGBTQ dating app, which has more than 3.6 million daily active users around the world, was recently revealed by BuzzFeed News to have shared the HIV statuses of its users as well as the dates of their most recent tests with two data optimisation companies.

While the two companies, Apptimize and Localytics, were only given limited user information, each user's HIV status and "last tested date" were linked to other personal information including GPS data, phone ID, and email address.

In other words, the companies would be able pinpoint an individual user's identity and location and link them to their HIV status. This could potentially endanger people living in countries or communities where homosexuality is frowned upon or even outlawed.

Grindr announced it would stop sharing users' HIV status hours after BuzzFeed's report published. However, Scott Chen, the company's chief technology officer, defended the company's data-sharing as an "industry standard use of third party partners."

Chen also insisted that Grindr doesn't sell user information to third parties and that its contractors do not share the user information any further.

But the fact that the user information was now held by at least three separate companies — Grindr, Apptimize, and Localytics — made the data more vulnerable to hacks, tech security expert Cooper Quintin told BuzzFeed.

Logging HIV statuses and last tested dates is optional on the app, meaning not every user was exposed through the Apptimize/Localytics contract.

However, Grindr has also shared users' precise GPS position, sexuality, relationship status, ethnicity, and phone ID with other third-party advertising companies, BuzzFeed reported. This data was sometimes shared via "plain text," which can be easily hacked. 

SEE ALSO: Grindr is trying to shake up the sleepy LGBTQ media sector with its new millennial lifestyle magazine Into

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A neuroscientist explains why reality may just be a hallucination

A security flaw has been discovered in popular gay dating app Grindr that reveals the exact location of every user with location services enabled.

In a post on note site PasteBin, an anonymous user explains how Grindr can be used to triangulate user locations using simple, unauthenticated calls to Grindr's application programming interface API calls. (An API is the access point that software developers use to link their apps and services to another app, in this case Grindr.) Using this exploit, another anonymous internet user went on to create a map that displays the names, photos and locations of all Grindr users with location services enabled. 

That flaw potentially lets men using Grindr become targets for gaybashing.

In a 2013 press release, Grindr claimed that over 90% of its users have location services enabled, meaning that almost every user of the app will have their location viewable on this map. The app is intended to let people see how far away you are but not your exact location. You can arrange meetings only by messaging the people who appear to be near you.

Here's a map of users in Malta:

The same PasteBin note also details how it's possible to spoof the app's messaging system and impersonate any user on the site, a serious flaw that Grindr has struggled to fix in the past.  

Here is a screenshot showing the location of Grindr users in Chicago:

The original PasteBin note claims that Grindr was informed of the exploit "several times within the past months." But in a statement to Business Insider, Grindr dismissed the safety concerns, remarking "We don’t view this as a security flaw. As part of the Grindr service, users rely on sharing location information with other users as core functionality of the application and Grindr users can control how this information is displayed. For Grindr users concerned about showing their proximity, we make it very easy for them to remove this option and we encourage them to disable ‘show distance’ in their privacy settings. As always, our user security is our top priority and we do our best to keep our Grindr community secure."

Despite downplaying the security concerns, after this article was published Grindr sent out an alert to all users, warning them that they may wish to hide their location.

This video shows how the map can be used, and why it might be dangerous to gay men who do not know their location is visible:

Grindr's API doesn't require authentication or developer keys to access, and so anyone can query the app to find the 50 nearest users, as well as their distance from any specific location. It's then possible to send two more queries from different locations, and triangulate the exact location of every user who has enabled location services.

Using the Grindr exploit, it's possible to view the locations, photos and names of Grindr users in countries like Iran and Russia, where being openly homosexual is often dangerous. America Blog was able to discover nearly 200 Grindr users in Iran using the method outlined above. Homosexuality is illegal in Iran, and it's estimated that the country has executed between 4,000 and 6,000 gay people since 1979. In Russia, homosexuality is legal, although gay men and women are often the target of hate crimes and violence.

Launched in 2012, Grindr pioneered the kind of location-based dating that Tinder went on to bring into the mainstream. Users can create profiles, and view other people near them sorted by their proximity. But the app has often found itself the subject of security scandals. In 2012 it was revealed that Grindr's API can be used to log in as any user, send messages and photos, and view passwords. Grindr later claimed to have fixed the vulnerability, although a report from the University of Amsterdam revealed widespread security issues due to the app's open API.

SEE ALSO: Despite Anti-Gay Propaganda, Grindr Use Is Exploding In Sochi

Join the conversation about this story »

Unless they have used it themselves, many advertisers may not know that gay geo-social networking app Grindr has a burgeoning advertising business and a potentially lucrative future data business.

Grindr claims to be the largest all-male mobile social network in the world, with nearly 10 million users in 192 countries. Those users are described in Grindr's pitch document to advertisers (which you can see in full below) as "affluent, tech savvy men," who mostly earn over the average income, spend more on products and services than straight people and are likely to have future travel plans: an ideal target base for advertisers.

However, it's also a potentially risky place for brands to advertise: it's predominantly used to organize no-strings sex, which can often be accompanied with offensive language (although Grindr does have a team of human moderators to attempt to stamp this out). In August a security glitch left users' locations vulnerable to being discovered by third parties. The company has since disabled distance display, which showed how close a potential match was to a user's current location.

Some people also use the app to organize drug pick-ups (many different apps are used for this too, most notoriously Instagram).

Business Insider talked to Grindr's CEO Joel Simkhai and asked what the company is doing to ensure brands are advertising in safe environments on the app that they would want to associate themselves with.

He told us over the phone:

"We have a team of moderators that review for profanity and monitor for the things that you mentioned [the drug pick-ups]. These types of behaviors are prohibited on Grindr and we also comply with iTunes and Google Play guidelines. We are very vigilant on that.

"Part of it is that we have people looking at it, and we can also control where brands [appear on the app] and that they are comfortable. I don't think Grindr is for every brand out there. But it's not X-rated content — maybe shirtless and showing some skin, but that's kind of who we are."

And plenty of brands so far have decided Grindr is for them: Uber, Airbnb, Audi, Groupon, Fiat, Live Nation and Dollar Shave Club are among the major brands sitting alongside smaller local businesses recently taking advantage of Grindr's location-based ad offering. Ad formats include traditional banners, text-based "broadcast" messages to inform users of local events or special offers near them and a new full-page interstitial ad that appears as users flick through profiles or close the app. They can be bought through advertising networks or directly through Grindr's 10-person global sales team.

The appeal of Grindr? "If you want to target men, or gay men, we are the natural first choice. Nobody else in the gay market has our scale and ability to deliver these kinds of ad formats," Simkhai claims.

The company does not "talk dollar figures," but advertising revenue in the 12 months to October was up 118% on last year, and ads now make up 25% of total revenue, according to Simkhai. Grindr Xtra subscriptions, which allow users to remove ads, make up the rest of Grindr's income. He adds that Grindr is the top grossing paid-for social networking app on iTunes, which should help people extrapolate how successful the company has been at making money to date.

Future money-making opportunities

But advertising and subscriptions may not be the only revenue stream for Grindr in the future. Simkhai is all too aware about the value of its API and data, which could be licensed to other companies.

"With our data API we'd be comfortable to share some, but not all, we wouldn't divulge any personal information ... we'd be interested in talking to other companies about data, location and the opportunities that come out of that," he said.

Simkhai also revealed that Grindr has been approached by other companies with potential takeover propositions before (he did not divulge which ones, or the size of the offers placed on the table) and "it's something we'd definitely be open to in the future," he said.

The profile of gay men in business shifted up a gear last month when Apple CEO Tim Cook came out publicly as gay in an essay written for Businessweek. We asked Simkhai, as a gay man in business himself, what impact this news had on him:

"To think that a gay man runs the most valuable company in the world just speaks for itself, it's a tremendous statement for everyone.

"[It says] gay men can be successful in business, they can make a lot of money, and there's no reason to exclude gay men from the business world because you can see they add tremendous value...it makes a guy like me very proud."

This is the document Grindr uses to market itself to potential advertisers and agencies.

SEE ALSO: Millennials Are Switching Off TV In Favor Of ... BuzzFeed

Join the conversation about this story »

A recent study found that a remarkable 30% of users on the dating app Tinder aren't actually single. 

But how many of those people are still on Tinder by accident?

See, contrary to the assumption of many (including a Business Insider coworker or two), deleting the Tinder app off your phone doesn't mean you have deleted your account.

Here's how you really delete all the online dating accounts you're sick of:

Tinder

To repeat: Deleting the app does not delete your account. To delete your account for real, navigate to the Settings pane, select App Settings, scroll down and select Delete Account. You’ll then see a message that says "Account successfully deleted" if it worked.

"If you subscribed to Tinder Plus, deleting the app and/or your account does not cancel your subscription," Tinder says on its FAQ page. You have to cancel your subscription via email.

OkCupid

OkCupid gives you the option of deleting or disabling your account. If you disable it, your profile will be removed, but you will be able to get all your old information, pictures, and messages back if you want in the future.

To permanently delete it, just go to Settings in either the app or desktop, and select "Delete Account."

Here's a quick link to do just that.

Hinge

It turns out you can't delete your Hinge profile from your smartphone, you've got to do it via a desktop computer.

Simply click here from a computer (will not work from mobile device) and remove the app from the list. Then, on your phone, delete the app icon as you normally would.

Match.com 

If you don't have a paid subscription, you can cancel your membership by visiting the Change/Cancel Membership page in your Account Settings (look for the gear icon).

Canceling your membership will hide your profile and photos, but you'll still be able to reactivate your account if you sign in.

Rather confusingly, Match has a separate section describing how to delete a profile permanently, but the answer is just not to even log back in once you've cancelled:

Coffee Meets Bagel 

There's no simple, do-it-yourself way to delete your Coffee Meets Bagel profile. You have to actually contact the company and have them do it for you. Reach out at contact@coffeemeetsbagel.com.

eHarmony 

There are two steps to deleting your eHarmony account.

First, you have to "close" it, meaning matches can no longer see your profile. Do that by going to Settings > Account Settings > Billing > Close Account. 

Then, to get rid of it completely and permanently, you have to email deletemyinfo@eharmony.comwith the subject line "Delete My Account Information." In the body of the email, ask for all your personal information to be deleted.

Grindr

To delete your Grindr profile, open the app, tap Grindr Mask > Settings > Privacy > Tap delete profile >Confirm.

SEE ALSO: This buzzy startup just snagged an ex-Amazon exec to help it form a radical company culture

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it

Grindr, the location-based dating app for gay men, has hired banking firm Raine Group LLC to help find a buyer, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Sources tell Bloomberg that "the sale process is early and no deal is assured." The same sources also don't know what Grindr's valuation could be in a sale.

Joel Simkhai has bootstrapped Grindr since its 2009 founding. Grindr's location-based service charges users about $12 a month.

Grindr claims to be the biggest male mobile social network in the world, with more than 5 million users in 192 countries. In Grindr's pitch documents, users are described as "affluent, tech-savvy men" who earn above the average household income, and have future travel plans, making them lucrative advertising targets.

In August, a security glitch left Grindr users' locations vulnerable to third parties. Since then, Grindr has disabled distance display, a feature that shows how close you are to a potential match.

If Grindr is looking to sell, one potential buyer could be IAC (InterActiveCorp), which owns the majority of the US online dating market through ownership in platforms like Tinder, OKCupid, and Match.com. 

Here's Bloomberg's full story on Grindr's potential sale.

SEE ALSO: How to join The League, a Tinder for elites, and who you'll find on it

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 5 awesome Google features you didn't know about

The leak of customer data from extramarital-affairs dating website Ashley Madison could sign the death warrant for the business — mainly because it prides itself on the heightened level of privacy it offers to its customers.

And when I spoke to the company's boss in May, he made it a point to mention how Ashley Madison was at the forefront of privacy technology.

Ashley Madison, owned by parent company Avid Life Media, which has a host of other niche dating websites, offered a unique service that allowed customers to pay for all their data to be erased. His company also used a feature that later became central to Snapchat's disappearing-data function, Biderman claimed. 

In other words, if you cancelled your account, your details would not be stored on any server or cached anywhere.

The luxury would cost users £15 ($20) to remove all their information. According to Buzzfeed, the service raked in nearly $2 million for the website.

However, according to data seen by The Guardian, the deletes may not have happened.

Ashley Madison "retained enough personal data about users to identify them to spouses — as the site’s hackers have claimed — despite offering a paid-for 'full delete' service," according to those who have examined the 10 gigabytes of user information from the July breach.

'We use technology to deliver discretion'

Ashley Madison spent the early part of 2015 trying to get a bank to launch an IPO in London, which was estimated to raise £135 million ($200 million) to fuel a massive expansion.

In May, I spoke to Avid Life Media's boss, Noel Biderman, about the impending flotation.

At the time, he told me that the company created the features popularised in mobile-dating and social-media photo apps "years ago" when it was looking to offer "how to have the perfect affair."

Biderman told Business Insider in a phone interview that while the enormous success of dating apps Tinder and Grindr and photo-messaging app Snapchat was "great for the industry," Ashley Madison is often overlooked for its technological innovations.

"We have always said that we are here to give you the 'perfect affair' by using technology to deliver discretion. What Snapchat gives is actually a minor feature of what we have used on our platform for ages, and the location-based settings for Tinder or Grindr are, again, just small features of a wider platform we have. We've been doing this since 2002," said Biderman at the time. Snapchat has nearly 200 million users.

Biderman said that his website used similar location-based technology as Grindr, Tinder, and self-deleting technology as Snapchat, but on one big platform. He added that Ashley Madison goes beyond those other app offerings and even wipes location-based history.

"I say good for them for making this central to their apps. It's great for brand positioning and the industry as a whole, but we were far ahead of everyone else on this before with the website and then with the phone application."

He added that the fact users could choose to wipe out their history at the website was a major feature.

Grindr, launched in 2009, is a dating app that is focused on the gay community, which uses location-based GPS to find someone local to hook up with. It has around 10 million users. Tinder, launched in 2012, is another location-based dating app that has a gimmick to swipe right if you want to get to know the person in a picture or swipe left if you're not interested. It has around 50 million users.

Ashley Madison launched its website in 2001 and now has 36 million members in 46 countries. In 2014, it had $115 million (£76 million) in sales, which is an almost fourfold increase since 2009. Biderman said that revenue is projected to reach over $150 million (£99 million) over the next year or so at the time of the phone interview.

The London IPO

The scandal is sure to be a blow to Ashley Madison's prospects. It was already struggling to get an IPO off the ground.

Now, it has to deal with the fallout of the scandal — not just the hacking but also the fact its technology is under tremendous scrutiny.

In July, I spoke to Biderman again to catch up on how the IPO was going. Instead of telling me he found a book runner for the float, he admitted that the company was thinking of abandoning the IPO altogether.

He said the company had potentially found a "better option."

"There is no change in securing a bank to lead an IPO, but right now we are looking and assessing two different strategies. We can do a straight-up IPO, but since the news of the potential launch was made, we got a lot of attention, and this has garnered a range of further options," said Biderman at the time.

"With the kind of income we generated over the last eight years and, if we remain as profitable as we are now over the next eight years, it may be in our current shareholders' interest to for us to use an investment vehicle to give them set dividends. For example, investing $1 a year would give you $1 in return the following year, rather than investing $1 and potentially getting $5 some time down the road."

Business Insider got in touch with Biderman's representatives in London and the US but they were not immediately available for an update.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to make texting on your iPhone as private as possible

Alongside the 30 million Ashley Madison user accounts leaked online — including names, email addresses, physical descriptions, and detailed sexual preferences — CEO Noel Biderman's emails are now available for anyone to read. 

Forbes pulled out a handful of conversations from those emails that show that Ashley Madison's parent company Avid Life Media was considering acquiring Grindr, the location-based dating app for gay, bisexual and bi-curious men, earlier this year.

The relationship between Biderman and Grindr founder Joel Simkhai stretches back to 2012, when the two had several conversations about advertising each others services. So when rumours emerged in May this year that Grindr was considering a sale, Joel Biderman started asking around to see how Grindr was doing financially.

Grindr's potential

According to Forbes, Jonathan Pollack from Toronto-based Fireside Capital called Raine Groupe, the company advertising Grindr for a possible sale. He came back to Biderman with some impressive figures for 2014 — $31 million (£19.9 million) in revenue, 4 million active users, and 250,000 paying subscribers. Grindr was also said to be earning $14 million (£9 million) in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). 

The Ashley Madison files also include an investor pitch deck from Grindr showing that the company considered itself to have even better prospects. The company expected cumulative advertising and subscription revenue to reach $38.1 million (around £24 million) in 2015, then jump to $48.1 million (£30.8 million) in 2016. 

But for a while it looked as though the idea would go no further. At the end of May Biderman was convinced that Grindr would not consider a sale for less than $100 million (£64 million). 

"The Ashley factor"

Ashley Madison's biggest shareholder Jason DeZwirek continued the conversation at the beginning of June. We pulled up DeZwirek's June 8 emailed originally flagged by Forbes. It's here that things get interesting.

In it, DeZwirek quotes another Ashley Madison board member referred to as "Leonard" by DeZwirek and thought to be Leonard Latchman of LDL Corp by Forbes:

"He says the expected purchase price is between 60 and 70 million (dollars). He also said Joel is willing to only 51% and keep the rest for now and that he is willing to stay on board for a couple of years."

It's not clear where they got this information from. DeZwirek feared that Avid Life Media would be unable to raise the $35 million (£22 million) needed for a 5% stake in Grindr because of Ashley Madison's name and reputation. But the aforementioned Leonard had a plan. 

Here's more from DeZwirek's email:

"Leonard thinks it would be a good acquisition for us and I said I agreed but I did not think that we could raise the debt even if it is as little as $35 million because of the Ashley factor. He thinks he could (raise the debt) with a Grindr standalone. He mentioned going it alone with no association to Avid and flipping it to Avid after closing. I thought that was an interesting idea but of course the debt holders would have to agree at the time. He could pursue it, and if he were successful flip it to use, or if for some reason he does not other dominoes would have to fall. While highly unlikely that he would be successful it is kind of a no-lose situation. Does any of this change our position on pursuing it?"

"I would rather own SeekingArrangement"

Biderman remained skeptical that Avid's name would actually be kept out of such a deal, believing that one of his company's board members shouldn't really be playing that sort of game. Instead, he first suggested that Avid be more transparent with Grindr founder Joel Simkhai about its "debt raising concerns," but then followed with another option.

“I could easily see a scenario wherein a group led by Leonard will lead to a possible default and therefore our ability to get the asset much more cheaply … and a condition wherein we can now ask for his resignation from the Board given the clear conflict he would find himself.”

While the meaning of Bilderman's final idea on the topic isn't exactly clear, Simkhai would probably be the one to lose from such a deal.

But Biderman seems to have shut the idea down.

"In my mind I don't really see where Avid owning Grindr helps us at the end of the day. I for one would rather own SeekingArrangement for that kind of money."

We have reached out to Ashley Madison and Grindr for this article, and will update with any new information. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: All the incredibly useful things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

We're getting a closer look at the business of gay social network Grindr, thanks to documents that leaked following the hack of extra-marital affairs dating site Ashley Madison.

Grindr is projecting revenues for 2015 of $38.1 million from 3.8 million monthly active users.

The computer systems of Ashley Madison's parent company Avid Life Media were breached in July 2015, and in August the hacker or hackers, who call themselves The Impact Team, began to leak internal company data online. This includes compromising personal information on more than 30 million users of the site, as well as sensitive documents and the emails of CEO Noel Biderman.

Included within Biderman's email correspondence is a "Management Presentation" for gay networking app Grindr, created in June 2015. Business Insider has reached out to Grindr for comment on the deck and will reply when it responds, but the document appears to be legitimate.

Avid Life Media is in possession of the document because at one point the company was considering investing in or acquiring Tinder, although it ultimately decided against it because of the price-tag.

The document provides a window into the financials of the private company, which launched in 2009 and has never taken on outside funding."Since Grindr's inception 6 years ago," it says, "society has experienced much wider mainstream acceptance of gay culture on a global basis. Grindr has not only benefited from this world-changing trend but has also been an essential part of transforming the culture itself."

Accordingly, the company has seen healthy growth over the last few years, with revenues rising to $31.8 million, up from $15.8 million in 2012  in 2014, with estimated revenues of $38.1 million in 2015. By the end of 2018, it predicts annual revenues of as much as $77 million — more than twice that of 2014.

By a considerable margin, its single biggest audience is USA, with just under 1.3 million monthly active users (MAUs). This is followed by the UK (377,000), Brazil (248,000), and France (185,000). Overall, it has 10.5 million global users, of which 3.8 million are MAUs. MAUs are forecast to grow by more than 40% in 2015.

Notably, Grindr claims that the average daily time its users spend on the app is higher than other social networks. It claims 54 minutes daily, compared to Facebook's 42.1 minutes, Tumblr's 34.2 minutes, and Instagram's 21.2 minutes. For Tinder, a dating app with similar functionality which also has heterosexual users, that figure is pegged at just 14.9 minutes daily. (The data comes via a report from eMarketer.)

Here are the relevant slides from the presentation:

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This $200 million plane is called the 'most lethal fighter aircraft in the world'

Joel Simkhai is a single, gay man living in Los Angeles, and he's the king of Grindr. Well, technically, he's the CEO and founder of the dating app for gay and bisexual men. He created Grindr out of a "selfish desire" to meet more gay men, and he's still a very regular user of his own app. Find out what it's like to be the king of Grindr.

Produced by Will Wei

Follow TI:On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Grindr is selling a majority stake to a Chines gaming company.

The popular gay hookup and dating app has announced that the Beijing Kunlun Tech Company is buying 60% of the company, according to multiple news reports.

The deal values Grindr at $155 million (£107 million). The other 40% is split between Joel Simkhai, founder and CEO, and company employees who have equity.

Why sell? Grindr's COO, Carter, McJunkin, told The New York Times that it was about growing the business. "We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner."

Looking forward, the company is going to attempt "solving more problems" for its users. "We've expanded to make it more of a lifestyle company," said McJunkin.

Meanwhile, it sounds like there may be more acquisitions on the horizon for Beijing Kunlun as it builds its portfolio. In a statement, chairman Yahui Zhou said: "We will continue to seek out and invest in high-quality technology companies led by top-tier management across the globe."

We got a look at Grindr's financials last year thanks to the hack of extra-marital affairs dating site Ashley Madison. At one point Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, considered investing in or acquiring Grindr (though ultimately decided not to due to the price tag), and ex-CEO Noel Biderman's leaked emails contained a slide deck prepared by Grindr.

The company has grown healthily over the last few years with revenues rising to $31.8 million (£22 million) in 2014, up from $15.8 million (£11 million) in 2012, with estimated revenues of $38.1 million (£26 million) in 2015. (The slide deck was prepared in June 2015.)

By the end of 2018, it predicted annual revenues of as much as $77 million (£53 million) — more than twice that of 2014.

By a considerable margin, its single biggest audience is USA, with just under 1.3 million monthly active users (MAUs). This is followed by the UK (377,000), Brazil (248,000), and France (185,000). Overall, it has 10.5 million global users, of which 3.8 million are monthly active users (MAUs). MAUs were forecast to grow by more than 40% in 2015.

Notably, Grindr claimed that the average daily time its users spend on the app is higher than other social networks. It claims 54 minutes daily, compared to Facebook's 42.1 minutes, Tumblr's 34.2 minutes, and Instagram's 21.2 minutes. For Tinder, a dating app with similar functionality which also has heterosexual users, that figure is pegged at just 14.9 minutes daily. (The data came via a report from eMarketer.)

Grindr has not previously taken outside funding.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This machine turns a truck into a tent in seconds - here's how it's installed

Joel Simkhai is a single, gay man living in Los Angeles, and he's the king of Grindr. Well, technically, he's the CEO and founder of the dating app for gay and bisexual men. In 2009, he launched Grindr out of a "selfish desire" to meet more gay men.

More recently, he sold a majority stake of Grindr to a Chinese gaming company. Simkhai, still a very regular user of his own app, took us around LA last summer. He showed us what it's like to be the king of Grindr.

Produced by Will Wei

Follow TI:On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Online dating can be a fun and efficient route to romance — but first you have to go through the hassle of creating a profile that screams, "I'm chill and fun and not full of myself but also not insecure!"

Luckily, we've got some simple tips to help guide you.

Using data from user profiles on OkCupid and Match.com, Wired took an extensive look at how to create "the perfect online dating profile."

There's a lot of info, and you can check it out here.

We went through it all and came up with seven easy ways to make your profile stand out.

Make sure you're using profile pictures where you are looking directly at the camera. Over 80% of the "hottest ranked profiles" on OkCupid had pictures featuring strong eye contact.

Ditch the smirk. When it comes to profile pictures, only 2% of the top ranked profiles on OkCupid featured people hiding their smiles. Instead, try smiling with your teeth.

Men who use the word "whom" (correctly) see over 25% more contact from women online, so be sure to watch your grammar.

Ahhh, romance.

More and more often these days, people find it through dating apps and websites like OkCupid, Tinder, or Hinge. 

Whether you've found a significant other or you're just sick of wading through cheesy bios and clumsy introductions in vain, here's a quick-n-dirty guide on how to get rid of your online dating accounts.

Because contrary to the assumption of many (including a Business Insider coworker or two), deleting the Tinder app off your phone doesn't mean you have deleted your account.

Here's how you really delete all the online dating accounts you're sick of:

Tinder

To repeat: Deleting the app does not delete your account.

To delete your account for real, navigate to the Settings pane, select App Settings, scroll down all the way to the bottom, and select Delete Account. You’ll then see a message that says "Account successfully deleted" if it worked.

"If you subscribed to Tinder Plus, deleting the app and/or your account does not cancel your subscription," Tinder says on its FAQ page. You have to cancel your subscription via email.

OkCupid

OkCupid gives you the option of deleting or disabling your account. If you disable it, your profile will be removed, but you will be able to get all your old information, pictures, and messages back if you want in the future.

To permanently delete it, just go to Settings in either the app or desktop, and select "Delete Account."

Here's a quick link to do just that.

Hinge

If you're on desktop, simply click here (the link will not work from mobile device) and remove the Hinge app from the list. Then, on your phone, delete the app icon as you normally would.

To delete your account via your phone, you actually do it through the Facebook app.

Once you've opened that up, click More > Settings > Account Settings > Apps > Logged in with Facebook > Hinge > Remove App. Then just delete the account. 

Match.com 

If you don't have a paid subscription, you can cancel your membership by visiting the Change/Cancel Membership page in your Account Settings (look for the gear icon).

If you do have a membership, cancelling it will just mean that you're not paying anymore, although your profile will remain on the site. Once you've canceled your subscription, delete your now-free account with the same instructions above. 

Rather confusingly, though, even after you've canceled your account, you can get it back just by signing back in, because Match keeps your information "stored in our database for historical and legal purposes only."

Match has a separate section describing how to delete a profile permanently, but the answer is just not to even log back in once you've cancelled:

Coffee Meets Bagel 

There's no simple, do-it-yourself way to delete your Coffee Meets Bagel profile. You have to actually contact the company and have them do it for you. Reach out at contact@coffeemeetsbagel.com.

eHarmony 

There are two steps to deleting your eHarmony account.

First, you have to "close" it, meaning matches can no longer see your profile. Do that by going to Settings > Account Settings > Billing > Close Account. 

Then, to get rid of it completely and permanently, you have to email deletemyinfo@eharmony.comwith the subject line "Delete My Account Information." In the body of the email, ask for all your personal information to be deleted.

Grindr

To delete your Grindr profile, open the app, tap Grindr Mask > Settings > Privacy > Tap delete profile >Confirm.

SEE ALSO: This buzzy startup just snagged an ex-Amazon exec to help it form a radical company culture

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how much you have to buy to make Amazon Prime worth it

The FBI has found no evidence that the gunman who left 49 people dead in an Orlando nightclub had gay lovers or used gay dating apps, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Omar Mateen, 29, carried out the shooting at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub, on June 12.

Mateen, who was killed at the scene, was married with a young son. He told police that he was acting in allegiance to ISIS.

Several regulars at Pulse have come forward saying that they had seen Mateen at the club before and that he had regularly used the gay dating apps Grindr and Jack'd.

A man, identified only as "Miguel," told Univision that he and Mateen were "friends with benefits," and that they had met up between 15 and 20 times.

FBI agents have looked into Mateen's laptop and cellphone, but have so far found nothing indicating that Mateen was gay, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The FBI will continue to investigate Mateen, but believes that the men who claimed that Mateen was gay may have not been credible.

SEE ALSO: REPORTS: Orlando shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked, used multiple gay dating apps

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch House Democrats shout down Paul Ryan during a gun-control protest

Philosopher and Author of "A Course of Love," Alain de Botton explores the harsh reality of 'love at first sight' in the digital age.

Follow TI: On Facebook

SEE ALSO: The cool reason celebrities are wearing this scarf

Join the conversation about this story »