The privacy policy
That is where location handling and data sharing are stated.
Checklist
Seven questions to ask before you sign up
It takes ten minutes and prevents two months of frustration. None of these questions appear on the marketing page, and all of them can be answered yourself.
Four questions that decide the daily experience
Can somebody message me without my approval? If yes, your inbox fills with things you did not ask for and you stop opening it. This is the question that most affects how it feels in week three.
What exactly am I paying for? A subscription buys time, and unused time is lost. Per-action pricing buys the action. Also check which basic features sit behind a paywall.
How do I cancel? If the answer is complicated, that is deliberate. A service with no renewing charge removes the question entirely.
Are there calls inside the service? A service that forces you to hand over a phone number in order to talk forces you to give a stranger a direct line to you, and blocking afterwards no longer helps.
Three questions that decide safety
What is revealed from my location? Look in the privacy policy. If it says an exact distance is shown, your address can be computed from three readings. If it says the position snaps to a grid and bearings are rounded, somebody thought about it.
What does blocking do? A real block makes both sides disappear from each other permanently, search included, and works after a conversation has opened. A block that only silences messages leaves you visible.
How do I delete my account? There must be a clear route, both inside the product and outside it. A service that makes deletion hard will make other things hard too.
And where the answers live
Not on the home page. The home page is written by marketing. The answers are in two places: the privacy policy and the terms of use.
Documents written to defend rather than to explain are recognisable immediately: long, generic, and answering no concrete question. A document that gives numbers, such as the size of the grid the location snaps to or the price of each action in a table, is a document somebody actually checked.
You can see what that looks like here: the TOKME terms and privacy policy contain a full pricing table, an explanation of the trilateration attack and what we did about it, and an email address answered by a person.
Where the answers live
The terms of use
That is where each action is priced and cancellation is defined.
A real email address
A service you cannot write to is one that will not answer when it matters.
Frequently asked questions
Which dating service is best?
Whoever gives one answer is usually paid for it. The choice depends on what matters to you: pace, payment model and privacy. The seven questions here give an answer that fits you rather than an advertiser.
How can I tell if a service protects privacy?
By the detail. A policy that states numbers, such as the location resolution that is exposed, has examined the question. One that says "we respect your privacy" and no more has not.
Should I sign up to several at once?
Fewer than you think. Your time divides and your replies slow down in all of them. One profile you maintain is better.
What is the worst sign?
Difficulty deleting an account or cancelling a charge. A service that makes that hard will make everything else hard.
The app is almost here. Want to know when?
TOKME is in the final stages of store review. Leave an email address and you will be among the first to know on launch day, with a free credit pack for early sign-ups.
The address is used for the launch notice and nothing else. We will not pass it on, and you can leave the list at any time.