Because of some broadly written and outdated anti-hacking legislation, it’s a federal crime to lie about your weight on your online dating profile, Mother Jones reports. The 1984 law criminalizes breaking a website’s terms of service — the fine print you pretend to have read and then check “yes” — which, in the case of some online dating sites, includes rules against misrepresenting your weight or age or marital status. EHarmony’s terms of service say, “By requesting to use, registering to use, or using the Singles Service, you represent and warrant that you are not married. If you are separated, but not yet legally divorced, you may not request to use, register to use, or use the Singles Service … You will not provide inaccurate, misleading or false information to eHarmony or to any other user.” The law is absurd (and can have disastrous consequences, in more serious applications), but it’s kind of brilliant from a match-making perspective. Honesty is the foundation of intimacy, and all that.
