In the ongoing cat and mouse game between Rudy Huyn and Tinder, it appears Tinder is gaining the upper hand.
On Monday, June 30th Tinder filed a complaint against 6tin over the usage of 'Tinder' in the app description, triggering Microsoft to pull the app. Within hours, however, Huyn had removed the offending language and 6tin was right back on the Store. Now just 48 hours later, 6tin once again bears the "This app is no longer published" moniker on the Store for Windows Phone.
It is not known if Tinder is once more behind this latest removal, or if Huyn himself unpublished the app. Unpublishing an app from the Store is one of the last resorts by Microsoft, versus just hiding the app from searches (but it is not as severe as revoking, which is reserved for malicious apps). Considering the history involved, we are leaning on yet another complaint from Tinder, though it is not obvious what their legal standing is this time as there is no mention of 'Tinder' in the app description.
The original Tinder complaint from Monday was quite specific, denoting:
"This app uses our trademark in the app description to describe this app as the Tinder app, our product, but it is not affiliated with Tinder at all. He is trading on our brand recognition to acquire users."
Interestingly, another third-party Tinder client dubbed Timber is still on the Store. Timber even proclaims itself "…the best Tinder client on Windows phone!" and goes on to mention 'Tinder' two more times in the app description. Likewise, searching for 'Tinder' in the Store brings up Timber as a top result. During this tit-for-tat with 6tin, Timber has managed to escape any action by Tinder. At least from a bystander's perspective, the legal moves by Tinder appear to be selectively targeting of 6tin. Either that or they have atrocious lawyers since Timber even charges for their app.
We've reached out to Huyn to find out what has caused this latest change in app status. For now, do not delete 6tin if you have it.
Thanks, @ankurb, for the tip!
