By: Kathryn Bursch, Tampabays10

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Clearwater, Florida – Rick DeAguila has been teaching self-defense for years and now this martial arts expert from Clearwater is helping launch an online dating service that also focuses on safety.

“Safety’s important, it should be important to everyone,” says DeAguila.

And that’s what the creators of Safer Dates are banking on. Company head Matthew Blackburn says Safer Dates offers better background screening than other online dating services.

By Paula Burkes Erickson, NewOK

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Like Brad Paisley's hit country song "Online,” where a nerd on the Internet morphs into a much cooler, taller dude with six-pack abs, many people misrepresent themselves in online dating services. Kelli Pickens and Shelley Cadamy can attest to it.

Pickens of Edmond once agreed to a date with a guy — who turned out to be a lot different than his online persona.

Uninterested, she begged off an after-dinner movie, and her date called her no fewer than 12 times in the next two hours, asking "Why didn't you like me?”

Cadamy of Oklahoma City

By Wendy Tanaka, The Daily Star

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By DAVID CRARY, Associated Press

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NEW YORK (AP) — As Valentine's Day approaches, all is not lovey-dovey in the high-stakes online dating industry.

The contentious issue of the moment — pitting one of the three biggest companies, True.com, against its major rivals — is whether online dating services can enhance their clients' safety by conducting criminal background screenings of would-be daters.

Last month, New Jersey became the first state to enact a law requiring the sites to disclose whether they perform background checks. True.com — the only large online dating service that already does such screenings — was elated by its successful lobbying and hopes other states will follow suit.

By Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post

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Kimberly Hall was twice betrayed by men she met dating online. Both turned out to be married.

So she started doing background checks on her dates using a Web site called Intelius. Now, the 33-year-old from Laurel is engaged to a man she met on Blackplanet.com, but even he had to undergo record checks.

"He wasn't happy" about doing it, Hall said of her fiance. But eventually he turned over his Social Security number.

By: Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

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CHICAGO —  It's the modern-day boy-meets-girl story: chatting online turns into chatting on the phone which turns into an in-person date over coffee. But before a relationship has time to blossom, some online daters are taking an extra step to make sure their possible soul mate isn't hiding anything — including a felony conviction.

In these days of connecting through the Internet, more Americans are turning to background screenings to make sure they're not getting involved with a bad egg. After all, checking someone out by typing his or her name in a search engine will only reveal so much.

Many Free Web Sites Offer Data

DES MOINES, Iowa -- More people are doing their homework by conducting background checks before going on a date.

Before going out, one woman in her 20s recently went online to check out her potential date. Drake University students typically use FaceBook.com.

12/12/2005 10:39 PM

 originally on USA TODAY

By Donna Leinwand, 

A debate among online dating companies over whether their websites should be required to say whether they do criminal background checks on clients has spilled over into state legislatures, a reflection of the websites' rising competitiveness.

True.com, a Dallas-based online dating service, started the ruckus in July 2004 when it began touting its criminal background checks and wrote proposed legislation that would force online dating sites to say whether they conduct such checks. The proposal has been considered by legislatures in California, Virginia, Ohio, Texas, Florida and Michigan, but none has passed it.

In Illinois, state Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, says he is having a similar bill drafted that he intends to introduce in January. "It seems like a common-sense thing," he says. "Internet dating isn't the same as going out to a social gathering. You can meet a large number of people very quickly. There aren't any types of precautions. ... We have to do as much as we can to protect people from predators."