Safer dating through the internet?

I noticed a billboard advertising this website on 24th street near my college campus. Online background research has been touted for employers and adults for a while now, but Safe Date is the first time I can recall seeing it directly targeted at young women. The site is all pastels, and while there are photos of men, it seems clearly directed at women. For $10-$70 a person can submit their date's name and birthdate and get a history of their past addresses and a sex offender and criminal database search. Even more intriguing, for $30-$70 one can become a "certified dater" where they willingly run through the gauntlet (it doesn't seem accidental to me that men are more prominently featured in this section's photos).

While it's difficult to search criminal databases outside of professional services like this, there are ways you can access this information for cheap. For a free sex offender search in Texas visit the state's database. For about $4 one can search Texas criminal records database. While I'm sure this site is well intentioned I encourage women to remember that things like domestic violence and date rape are rarely reported to authorities, don't think that throwing down money for a search means your date is free of a dangerous qualities.

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