Online dating site Match.com sent a letter from its lawyer to rival Plentyoffish.com last week, accusing it of citing statistics about itself and its members (like the fact that they’ll go on 18 million dates this year) that Match says can’t be supported. It then went on to “demand that [Plentyoffish] immediately cease and desist”… or provide Match with user data to back them up. Ever the friendly rival, Match’s lawyer said the company would be glad to sign a confidentiality agreement before taking a gander and Plentyoffish’s proprietary data. POF’s founder basically told Match to get lost, highlighting several figures that Match touts about its service, including one saying that an average of nearly 1000 people per day get married after first meeting on Match. To be honest, a lot of the figures cited by both parties are a little hard to believe, and sound like little more than attempts by the sites to sell hope to prospective users. But starting a fight over a rival’s claims — when all that’s likely to do is call attention to your own — may not be the wisest move for anybody in the online dating business.

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