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eHarmony.ca is not a Canadian company — 6 things Canadians must know about

Canadians must realise that eHarmony.ca is not a Canadian company or covered by Canadian laws. Canadians can’t take them to Canadian court or report them to their local Better Business Bureau.

Dating Site Reviews commented this morning, “eHarmony or RelyID should make sure we are covered by our own privacy laws (maybe open an office in Canada?) or at least inform us if we are not.” I sure hope they do.

Read also: Canada tells Facebook to increase privacy policy; eHarmony retains your personal info indefinitely

If they do open an office in Canada, there ARE consequences:

  1. eHarmony Canada is immediately accessible to Canadian law enforcement, protecting Canadians’ consumer rights and protecting Canadians when crimes occur between eHarmony members. Right now, if your match in Calgary assaults you, the courts of Canada cannot oblige eHarmony to help the police. No, they cannot.
  2. eHarmony Canada contributes to the Canadian economy, paying Canadian taxes, which is always good. Right now, nobody in Canada makes a dime when Canadians subscribe to eHarmony. The Canadian TV stations who do make money off eHarmony advertising can’t collect taxes.
  3. eHarmony Canada must provide same-sex pairings. The Canadian Civil Marriage Act of 2005 allowed same-sex marriage nationwide, and discrimination to commercial services because of sexual orientation violates the Canadian Human Rights Act and related laws and, possibly, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. Canada ain’t California, baby, it’s tougher!
  4. eHarmony Canada must follow Canadian privacy laws. Right now, in fact, eHarmony has absolutely no obligation to follow any Canadian law. TRUSTe is not enough; eHarmony’s data safeguarding and privacy practices would be subject to challenge by any Canadian. Read Industry Canada’s PIPEDA FAQ for more details.
  5. eHarmony Canada must collect GST. It would be a Canadian entity providing commercial services to Canadians. (This is also the best proof that eHarmony.ca is not currently a Canadian company. Failure to collect GST is a Revenue of Canada offense.)
  6. eHarmony can have a .ca Internet domain name. Right now, eHarmony has no right to the eHarmony.ca domain since it is not Canadian. We brought it to CIRA’s attention more than a year ago, but our friends at CIRA are slow in cracking down eHarmony.

eHarmony.ca doesn’t tell you any of this, eh?

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Comments 7

  1. Paul M wrote:

    You seem to have a beef with Eharmony, why?

    Posted 30 Mar 2009 at 11:43 am
  2. Debbie wrote:

    I do not understand why it takes so long to have a response from Eharmony.ca. I am a canadian and I know this is not a canadian company but I have given all what they ask me for and yet no reply for weeks. Whats going on? I mean I figure that it would function just the way they advertise it on television. By golly is this a fraud thing or what

    Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 12:27 pm
  3. eharmonyblog wrote:

    Hi Debbie: What are you trying to do? Have you called them on the 1800 number?

    I figure that it would function just the way they advertise it on television.

    I’m curious by this, what do you mean?

    Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 9:23 pm
  4. Susan wrote:

    Here goes the canadian “politically incorrect” assumptions, yet again.
    I am canadian and maybe canadians should get some business education.
    You can have a new york or alaska email address and not be AT ALL from those territories.

    Come on!

    Posted 12 Feb 2010 at 9:57 am
  5. Susan wrote:

    By the way….for those who wrote ” fraud or scam?

    Well, open your eyes, and grow up! Everything from government to your local doctor all have been publically noted as scams or frauds……

    LEts not start bashing a simple relationship matching website…. Your day to day dealings with the commercial and political world should worry people more ( especially canadians!)

    Posted 12 Feb 2010 at 10:00 am
  6. CaptStubbing wrote:

    I dont think their auto-renewal of subscriptions would be legal as it is now if it were a canadian company. Have this practice been tested in a US court?

    1. Auto renew status should be obvious, indicated on the main page. The way it is now is obviously meant to make your customers forget about it.
    2. An email warning to the customer that the subscription is about to be auto renewed, something like 48 hours in advance. Again the only possible reason why you dont implement such a simple measure is that you want the maximum number of customers to forget about it.

    3. Turning off auto-renew should be a simple one click action, being forced to answer a survey to cancel a subscription is again a way to make the process as complicated as possible with the goal of having the maximum number of customer to auto-renew against their will.

    Posted 22 Aug 2010 at 3:17 pm
  7. eharmonyblog wrote:

    CaptStubbing, “negative option billing” is alive and well in Canada. For example, read http://www.ellenroseman.com/?p=22 .

    In the United States this practice is under scrutiny; see our article http://eharmony-blog.com/2014 .

    Posted 22 Aug 2010 at 3:51 pm

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