U.S. residents spent $469.5 million on virtual reality dating and personals in 2004, and over $500 million in 2005, the second largest segment of “paid content” on the web, according to a examination conducted by the Online Christian Dating Publishers Association (OPA) and comScore Networks.

US government regulation of dating services began with the International Marriage Broker Regulation Announcement (IMBRA) which took fruit in March 2007 after a federal court in Georgia upheld a challenge from the dating site European Connections. The charter requires internationally oriented dating services to conduct, among other procedures, appeal offender checks on US customers before communication can occur with a foreigner.