The Advertising Standards Authority has just upheld a couple of complaints about online dating service eHarmony.
One complaint was about the TV ad that suggested 2% of Americans were marrying after meeting on the eHarmony website. Well, that 2% was based on market research - and the ASA didn't think it was good enough to substantiate the claim.
The other complaint was about an offer to "get started at eharmony.co.uk today and review all your matches for free". Completing a registration profile on the website involves answering 258 multiple choice questions. eHarmony says it's not always possible to find a match; in fact, it's not possible to find a match in 20% of cases. That's one in five people who can't even get started with the lottery of online dating because eHarmony reckons there is no-one in the world for them.
Anyway, the ASA upheld the complaint because some people wouldn't have any matches to review. And it got me thinking about the odds. On the surface it seems that finding a truly perfect match is as likely as flipping a coin 258 times and waiting for someone else to choose the same sequence of heads and tails. Which, if everyone's different and my maths are correct, means we don't have anything like enough people on this planet.
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