Sponsors (4)
Introduced March 4, 2025 by Marsha Blackburn · Last progress March 4, 2025
The bill aims to reduce fraud by requiring rapid, informative notifications and strengthening federal enforcement, but it also raises privacy and liability concerns, could impose costs on providers and users, and limits state flexibility and private legal remedies.
Members who exchanged messages with accounts banned for fraud will receive timely (typically within 24 hours, up to 72 hours), clear notifications that identify the banned username and last message time and include warnings not to send money or financial information plus anti‑fraud best practices, helping them avoid further contact and reduce risk of financial loss.
Online dating service providers and users will face stronger federal oversight because the FTC and state parens patriae authority can enforce the notification requirements, increasing incentives for provider compliance and offering federal remedies for violations.
Members may have account identifiers exposed because required notices identify banned usernames, which could lead to misattribution or misuse and harm innocent users' privacy or safety.
Online dating service providers will face operational burdens and costs from tight notification timelines (usually 24 hours), and those costs could be passed on to users through higher fees or reduced services.
State and local governments will lose flexibility because federal preemption of state/local notification rules could block stricter local consumer protections.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires online dating services to notify members who have exchanged messages with an account that was suspended or banned for suspected attempts to obtain money by fraud. Notifications must identify the banned account, give the time of the most recent message, warn members not to send money or financial info, provide anti-fraud tips and customer-service contact information, be clear and conspicuous, and be delivered by agreed means within set time windows. The bill also limits certain civil liability for providers, assigns enforcement to the Federal Trade Commission with parallel state attorney general authority, preempts state or local rules about these notifications, and becomes effective one year after enactment. A separate short-title provision is included but creates no substantive duties or funding.