Match Com

Among new Internet-based real estate ventures to pop up in recent months is one that enables house hunters to simultaneously search for just about every lifestyle criteria imaginable. Another protects would-be tenants from unwittingly renting from a struggling owner in the midst of a foreclosure. SpatialMatch.com, an overlay technology that can be embedded on an agent's website or perhaps on an entire multiple listing service, enables buyers to pursue properties using any number of lifestyle criteria.

Ticketmaster, the biggest retailer of concert and sports tickets, reported a second-quarter profit of $14.7 million as revenue rose at its Match.com Internet dating service. Net income was 10 cents a share, contrasted with a loss of $29.5 million, or 21 cents, in the year-earlier quarter, the company said. Sales at Match.com and affiliates almost tripled to $29.5 million from $10.7 million. Ticketmaster shares fell $1.95 to $13.37 on Nasdaq.

Swapping spit: The term takes on a more refined meaning at the new dating site ScientificMatch.com. A prerequisite for signing up -- in addition to having a bit of cash to spare -- involves swishing a cotton swab inside your cheek and mailing a juicy sample of skin cells and saliva. What do you get in return for your DNA-laden drool? A chance at genetic and olfactory harmony. ScientificMatch.

TEHRAN - Iranian ministers have fretted for years about a "marriage crisis" in the country. The average age when people wed has climbed since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, causing concern among officials, as well as family elders, that Iranians may stray from a traditional pious path by staying single too long. Now a government minister says the country needs to legalize matchmaking websites to nudge Iranians to get hitched at younger ages. Mohammad Abbasi, the country's sports and youth minister, recently said he hoped to come up with rules for what may amount to a sort of Match.com or eHarmony suited for the Islamic Republic.

Some may call it a tale of beauty and the beast. But Sam, a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested, and a three-time champ in the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, is the dog of Susie Lockheed's dreams. Lockheed, 53, enjoys massaging Sam's fleshy, thin, potato-chip ears and running her fingers through the small patches of white hair on his head. She likes kissing Sam's hairless frame, littered with blackheads, brown warts and moles. Even his hindquarters have a large hernia lump.

A police officer seeking revenge against a former girlfriend hacked into the woman's e-mail account, assumed her identity at an online dating service and contacted 70 men, inviting some of them for rendezvous at the woman's home, Suffolk County prosecutors charged Monday in a 197-count indictment. Investigators declined to identify the woman, whom they said discovered the scheme when strangers began appearing at her house, claiming she had solicited their visits via Match.

You really got my motor running with the article on speed-dating ("You Can Learn a Lot in Just Three Minutes," Nov. 13). Michelle Maltais' touched a chord with me, as I too have sampled the Match.com experience. It's fast-food love. Internet dating forces us to pass judgment on others through a photograph and a small essay. But the truth is that chemistry between a man and a woman can never be written down as a scientific formula. Yes, you can learn a lot in three minutes, but think of all that you miss.

USA Interactive, the Internet commerce company run by Barry Diller, restructured management ranks into three core categories and said the head of its electronic retailer, HSN, is leaving. The company -- home to travel firms Expedia Inc. and Hotels.com, Ticketmaster and dating service Match.com -- said it would reorganize operations into three groups: information and services, electronic retailing and travel services. Shares of New York-based USA fell 35 cents to $24.34 on Nasdaq.

David Dutcher met Sharon on Match.com in late 2008, a few months after separating from his wife. "We had a lot in common," he recalled. Sharon loved four-wheel-drive trucks and sports. They met for coffee, then dinner. Sharon was tall, slender, blond and beautiful. She moaned that she had not had sex in a long time. She told him he had large, strong hands and wondered if that portended other things. She described his kisses as "yummy. " "It felt a lot like Christmas," said Dutcher, 49, a tall, burly engineer with wavy red hair.

By promising to join the military, a former Long Island police officer avoided jail time and probation Monday for hacking into his ex-girlfriend's online dating account and setting up dates for her with men she didn't know. Michael Valentine, 29, was charged in April with 197 counts, including stalking, computer tampering and harassment. He pleaded guilty in June to two misdemeanor charges of unauthorized use of a computer.