Hello,

Bumble markets itself as a safe and ethical alternative as a dating app – but when it comes to privacy, Bumble might be even worse than its competitors. Unless users actively opt-out, Bumble may be selling their deeply personal data for profit.¹

Mozilla has asked Bumble repeatedly if they sell or share your personal data as their privacy policy suggests, but they won't give us an answer. No one likes to be ghosted. But Bumble can’t really afford to ignore us.

Right now, the company is more vulnerable to public pressure than usual: Just last month, Bumble pulled a controversial marketing campaign and apologized after a public outcry.²Another big PR problem is not what the company needs right now - let’s use this opportunity and pressure Bumble to live up to its values and offer better privacy rights to all users.

Tell Bumble: Don’t sell or share users’ data without their permission!

Dating websites and apps are notorious for hoarding intimate details about users in the name of love. Earlier this year, Mozilla researched 25 dating apps to see which could be trusted for privacy, security, and the use of AI. We found that 88% of the dating apps reviewed earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label because of poor privacy practices – Bumble being one of them for potentially selling sensitive data, including location, age and gender.³

When it comes to finding love online, people often share far *more* intimate information than they’d be willing to normally share with any other app. This leaves customers very vulnerable, especially if this data is used for anything other than finding good matches.

Since 2021, Mozilla has been keeping tabs on the dodgy privacy policies of dating apps. And that’s because people experience real life consequences when their data is sold for profit. When location data from gay dating app Grindr ended up in the hands of data brokers, it was then sold to a US-based Catholic group to monitor members of their clergy.⁴ And that’s just one of many such examples.

To make an informed choice about the privacy trade offs of using an app like Bumble, customers need to have privacy be the default. That’s why we’re calling on Bumble to make data sharing and selling with third parties an opt-in option, rather than opt-out. Because we believe people shouldn’t have to put in extra effort just to protect their privacy from a company that claims to care about privacy.

Sign the petition and tell Bumble to make privacy the default, and to only share and sell users’ data with explicit opt-in consent!

Thank you for everything you do to protect online privacy,

Reem Suleiman
US Advocacy Lead
Mozilla

More Information:

1. Mozilla: Privacy Not Included: Bumble. 15 March 2024.

2. Salon: Bumble's anti-celibacy marketing campaign and its backlash, explained. 15 May 2024.

3. Mozilla: Data-Hungry Dating Apps Are Worse Than Ever for Your Privacy. 23 April 2024.

4. Guardian: Colorado Catholic group spent millions to identify priests using gay dating apps. 10 March 2023.