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11 IPCLJ 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/ipclj11 and id is 1 raw text is: Chamow: Policing the Perils of Online Dating POLICING THE PERILS OF ONLINE DATING: HARASSMENT, SCAMS, DARK PATTERNS, MONOPOLY, AND PERVERSE INCENTIVES Kevin Chamow * INTRODUCTION We are thirty years into bowling alone.1 Political scientist Robert Putnam's theory on the decline of civic engagement in the United States-a country that was once known as unusually civic-is worth revisiting.2 Indeed, today Putnam asserts that what I wrote in 'Bowling Alone' is even more relevant now. Because what we've seen over the last 25 years is a deepening and intensifying of that trend. We've become more socially isolated, and we can see it in every facet in our lives.3 In American life, the decline of third spaces, spaces distinct from home and work, is not just a benign social mutation, nor is its impact solely to be felt in the political realm. It also concerns collective health and wellbeing more broadly, as these spaces enrich social interaction, sense of community, and belonging outside of the home and workplace, and provide access to key services, goods, and amenities, in addition to community sites that help buffer against loneliness, stress, and alienation.4 These spaces also facilitate dating and the formation of sexual relationships. In their absence, a demand arose for a space where this could occur. For there are actually three inevitabilities in life: death, taxes, and more life. Out of this demand grew a whole industry offering online *J.D. Candidate, Seton Hall University School of Law, 2025; M.A., Sociology, Rutgers University, 2015; B.A., Political Science and Economics, University of Pittsburgh, 2011. Thank you to Seton Hall University's Professor of Law David Opderbeck, whose class on cyberlaw provided the springboard for this paper, and whose suggestions helped form it. Thank you to the editors of University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal, especially Magaly Taylor for her attention to detail and structure. 1. See generally Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, 6 J. OF DEMOCRACY 65 (1995) ('Bowling alone' specifically referenced the decline in bowling leagues, but Putnam shows that the decline in civic association participation in societal organizations was and is happening generally; this means an overall decline in 'social capital,' capital arising from networked associations with others.). 2. Id. at 66-67. 3. Lulu Garcia-Navarro, 'The Interview ': Robert Putnam Knows Why You're Lonely, N.Y. TIMEs (July 13, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/magazine/robert-putnam-interview.html (listing the harms for social isolation, Putnam mentions health... country... [and] the health of people around you). 4. Jessica Finlay et al., Closure of *Third Places'? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing, 60 HEALTH PLACE 102225 (2019). 1