The Federal Court has ordered a dating website to publicly disclose that it created and operated well over a thousand of the profiles on the site.

The court found that Jetplace Pty Ltd created 1,371 profiles which purported to represent actual users of its RedHotPie website and appeared in the site's 'Uncut' section.

The court found that Jetplace used some of its own profiles to send messages or flirts to members of the website, and that the company's profiles also appeared in searches carried out on the website.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched legal action against the company late last year, alleging that the profiles breached the Trade Practices Act because they were misleading and deceptive.

The court found that the profiles made misleading representations that the website had performance characteristics and benefits it did not have.

"The ACCC will not hesitate to take swift and decisive action where consumers are exposed to misleading tactics by website operators," the ACCC's chairman Graeme Samuel said in a statement.

"Website operators such as Jetplace must accept that there is significant potential for many vulnerable people to be attracted to socialising and dating websites and that the website operators have a legal responsibility under the Trade Practices Act to ensure the information they place on the website is accurate."

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission company registry shows that Jetplace has been registered since 2002 and is based in West Perth.

The Jetplace website says that in May 2005 redhotpie.com.au was second to rsvp.com.au in web rankings for the Australian dating category, but gives no more up to date information.

The court also found that Jetplace directors, Maxwell James McGuire and Mark Semaan, were party to the offending conduct.

The ABC has received a written response from the company, which says it fully cooperated with the ACCC when it became aware of its enquiries in November 2008, and that it consented to the court's orders.

"The central matter of concern to the ACCC was part of RedHotPie.com.au's User Security Suite (USS) which depended on the use of a very small number of administrative profiles created by the Company to act as their eyes and ears on the website. The User Security Suite successfully assisted in the detection of and action against illegal activities and predatory behaviour on the website," director Max McGuire said in the statement.

"A total of 1371 profiles were created over a four year period for the User Security Suite. Only a small number of these profiles were active at any given time.

"This part of the RedHotPie User Security Suite was voluntarily deactivated in November 2008 following the identification of the ACCC's concerns. This part of the site's User Security Suite would have been of minimal inconvenience to bona fide members of the site, and most will not have been aware of its existence or its passing."

It is a similar response to that which the ABC received from Mark Semaan last year, when the ACCC launched its court action.

"The central matter of concern to the ACCC was the use by RedHotPie of 'monitoring profiles'. These profiles were used as part of the site's User Security Suite (USS) which successfully assisted in the detection and action against illegal activities, predatory behaviour and scammers on the website," Mr Semaan wrote in an email on November 6 2009.

"This part of the RedHotPie User Security Suite was voluntarily deactivated almost one year ago following the identification by [the] ACCC of concerns in relation to them. Most bona fide members of the site will not have been aware of its existence or its passing."

Director Mark Semaan's LinkedIn page says he has been with the company since January 2004, and lists his previous employer as BHP Billiton.

Mr Semaan's LinkedIn page also says he studied finance and computer science at Edith Cowan University.