Last year, True filed a lawsuit against a convicted felon and registered sex offender from California who applied for membership with the online dating service, misrepresented his felony status, and improperly accessed True's database, all in violation of its policies. The lack of access to all criminal records made it possible for this felon to circumvent the criminal background screening.

According to True, the prosecution has resulted in an agreement that achieves the following:

1) Prevents the convicted felon from signing up, using or communicating through any online dating or relationship service;

2) Requires him to immediately cancel all current memberships to online dating and relationship sites;

3) Commits the felon to complete a community service obligation;

4) Designates he pay monetary damages to True (which True claims it will donate to improving consumer safety).

In places like California, some jurisdictions restrict access by companies to criminal conviction data, such as the California statewide sex offender registry in this case. It allowed the felon to circumvent True's background check service. True claims that its primary objective in the lawsuit was to obtain a permanent injunction preventing the convicted felon from accessing the True Website and its members, no matter how long it took. The lawsuit explained that this convicted felon violated federal and state laws when he falsely represented himself to True and its members as a non-felon.

"From day one, when I founded this company, I made a solemn pledge to create a safer dating environment for our members and our industry," said Herb Vest, founder and CEO of True. "I take the safety of our members personally. Upon learning of his identity from a True member, we immediately removed this convicted felon and registered sex offender from our Website, alerted our members who had been in contact with him, reported the individual to appropriate authorities and started our civil prosecution. With this wide-reaching settlement we have improved the safety of True's members and the members of all other companies in our industry as well - even companies that previously ignored warnings that this specific convicted felon and registered sex offender was on their Web site and interacting with their members. This is a victory for the more than 27.4 million people who use online dating sites."

True has been doing a major push to force all online dating services to do background checks, while at the same time using provocative advertising to try and gain memberships, a tactic that has some questioning True's motives.

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