Internet dating boss admits most of the woman on his site 'looking for no-strings sex' are actually MEN

Plenty Of Fish site has 55m members worldwide

3.3m users want 'intimate encounters', but only 6,041 of these are women



Founder Markus Frind says most are 'horny men pretending to be women'

Site has removed Intimate Encounters option



Canadian Frind wants to encourage more 'meaningful relationships'

Has imposed ban on contacting anyone where age gap is 14 years or more

Frind estimates 1bn babies will have been been born thanks to site



Dating website Plenty Of Fish (POF) has announced a radical rule shake-up to stop 'sleazy' men harassing female members for sex, and to reduce the number of men pretending to be women in order to have 'horny' conversations with other men.

The free membership site's Canadian founder Markus Frind messaged users to explain the changes - which include removing the Intimate Encounters option - and outlining that the measures are being imposed in order for the service to focus more keenly on creating 'meaningful relationships'.

POF - which has 55 million members worldwide, 3.3m daily users and an annual turnover of £6.6m - has also imposed a ban on contacting anyone with whom the age gap is 14 years or more.

Plenty Of Fish wishes to focus on creating 'meaningful relationships', and have removed the option for contacting someone if you are after an 'intimate encounter'



The announcement was made to POF customers via the site. Frind - who estimates one billion babies will have been born to partners who met on his site - said: 'When I created POF, I wanted it to be all about finding relationships with the right person.

'I got the site to 10 million users without any employees, people and POF was generating a ton of relationships. But around three years ago, everyone started using the website via mobile phones.'

About 70 per cent of the site's users log on via a mobile phone, and Frind added: 'Unfortunately about two per cent of men have started to use POF as more of a hookup site mostly due the casual nature of cell phone use.'

The dating website was founded in 2003, and now has a turnover of more than £6.6m a year

NO SEX, PLEASE: THREE MAJOR CHANGES TO PLENTY OF FISH

Frind says many women on the site are actually men pretending to be female 1. First contact cannot be sexual: 'Anyone who tries to get around this rule will be deleted without warning.' 2. Users can only contact others who are not more than 14 years younger or older than themselves. There is 'no reason for a 50 year old man to contact a 18 year old women,' according to POF. 3. Intimate Encounters have been terminated. According to POF statistics, there are 3.3 million people who use the site every day, and of those there are only 6,000 single women looking for intimate encounters.

And of those 6,000 women, many are men. 'Intimate Encounters on POF can be summed up as a bunch of horny men talking to a bunch of horny men pretending to be women,' Frind said.



