The weirdest iPhone dating app, or the most useful?

Intelius DateCheck lets you, uhh, check your dates. Launched at DEMOfall09, this "free" iPhone app. certainly attracted some attention -- but not necessarily for the right reasons. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers decide: handy or creepy?

By Richi Jennings. September 23, 2009.

Your humble blogwatcher has selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment. Not to mention AES crypto for the rest of us...
 

Want to read John Cook's take? There's an app. for that:

Looking for someone to date -- but want to eliminate losers, criminals and crackpots? ... Intelius, the Bellevue provider of background checks, today is introducing a new iPhone application called Date Check.
...
Users of the app can activate the "Sleaze Detector" to determine whether potential dates have been convicted of drug possession, assault, DUI or other crimes. ... [Or] the "Net Worth" function, which shows whether their suitor owns a home and, if so, how much it is worth.

Is Paul Taylor being slightly sarcastic?

“Look up before you hook up,” said the blond demoing the application. Well I was convinced. ... DateCheck, unveiled at the DemoFall 09 show in San Diego, is a free mobile app designed to enable potential partners to decipher fact from fiction before deciding whether to accept an invitation to a date.
...
Intelius provides background check and public records services to companies and individuals using the internet to sniff out personal data that sometimes people would rather forget.

Adriana Lee speaks from experience:

So imagine meeting someone cute at Starbuck’s or the library. You introduce yourselves, chat, then excuse yourself to the bathroom. While there, you dig up info like age or address (A commuter from Queens? Ugh, too far!), or hit up details like education or employment history. Now you can decide whether that line about an Ivy League education (which was actually a year at community college) is an adorable attempt at impressing you or a bald-faced lie worthy of rejection. All this, in under a few minutes of meeting the person.
...
I wonder if apps like this suck the romance right out of the courtship process. Or maybe I’m old-fashioned. ... By the way: The free Date Check mobile for iPhone will be available soon in the App Store, so if you’re interested, it won’t be long before you can get your “nosy” on. Android and Blackberry versions are slated for release in October.

But, wait, did you say "free"? Uh, MG Siegler clarifies (unfortunately):

Unfortunately, though Intelius didn’t really mention it on stage, obtaining all of this information costs money. ... A criminal check is $19.95. Pulling social network info? $9.95. So while the app itself may be free, the service is anything but.
...
Unfortunately, Intelius, and its co-founder Naveen Jain, have a bit of a sketchy history, including allegations of fraud. Jain, who left InfoSpace to start Intelius, was said to be buried in lawsuits back in March, and the company was looking like it could be in trouble.

And Dean Takahashi is slightly creeped out by the whole thing:

It was spooky enough a year ago when Intelius launched iSearch, a comprehensive service that combines public databases to deliver a complete dossier. ... Now this is downright scary. Or maybe it’s just useful, depending on your point of view.
...
I’ve asked around about this app, which got a roar of applause after the presentation. Some people think it’s useful in the name of dating safety, while others feel like it erodes privacy.

So what's your take?
Get involved: leave a comment.
 

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him as @richi on Twitter, or richij on FriendFeed, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itblogwatch@richij.com.
 
 
And finally...

• A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
  [hat tip: Lt Gen Panda]

 
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