An interesting piece of legislation is now blasting its way through the chambers of the Maryland legislature. This legislation threatens to lay waste to Internet social networking as we know it, if not for the inclusion of one solitary line of text.

While it appears honorable and well-intentioned on it's face, Maryland's HB65 (pdf file) is meant to place severe restrictions on the practice of international marriage brokering. If signed into law, the bill will place strict and deeply invasive disclosure requirements on the clients and providers of international match making services. This legislation does not bode well for the likes of eHarmony and Match.com.

GM may be facing bankruptcy, but Match.com, the online dating service, had 20% more members sign up this past December than the year before. Followers of the sector won't be surprised -- rival site eHarmony recently did a study and found that traffic to its site tends to move in the opposite direction of a flagging Dow.

So, at a time when people are cutting back in so many other ways, what causes them to put themselves through a process that can be painful, awkward and expensive? Don't they have enough on their minds without worrying about what to wear and how much to lie about their age?

Dr. Michael Cunningham, a psychologist, says that when people are going through tough times, they want someone to be with, someone who understands their concerns. Connecting with someone new can be a great source of support and that can feel good.

Besides, it seems some people may be using the dating services not only to find a mate but to look for a job. Someone who's out of work may even consider a "lunch dating" service, for example, at a time when career counselors advise doing everything you can to "put yourself out there" and "broaden your network."

So the next time you're feeling down, instead of spending more fruitless hours trolling the employment sites, try logging onto Match.com instead. Maybe you'll get lucky.

Ever since Barry Diller cobbled together the internet Frankenstein called IAC/InterActiveCorp. (NASDAQ: IACI), he had been assuring investors that somehow it all made sense to group together TicketMaster with Evite with Ask.com. Wall Street cried confusion.

Then the media mogul spun off his Expedia travel business into a separate company, figuring that was the reason why investors were confused by the ungainly IAC. Judging from the stock price, investors were just as confused as ever, even as IAC said it was "proud to have so many great brands under one roof." Now, Diller has thrown in the towel and is splitting up IAC into five separate publicly traded companies. As envisioned, IAC would be more or less a media and entertainment company, maintaining businesses including Ask.com, Citysearch, Evite, CollegeHumor and Bloglines. The other companies would be centered around HSN, TicketMaster, and Interval International.

Diller seems to have gotten the message from Wall Street, albeit about five years too late.

"We've been a complex enterprise almost from the very beginning 12 years ago, with hundreds of transactions over those years," he said. "And while we've created a lot of value, I've always believed our complexity and many mouthfuls of sentences to explain who we are and what our strategy is have hampered clarity and understanding with all our constituencies, particularly investors."

Plus, the confusion was costing Diller money.

Match.com, which is owned by IAC/InteractiveCorp. (NASDAQ: IACI), has certainly been a big-time winner. It has a dominant brand, massive customer base and lots of cash flow. For example, in 2006, revenues increased 25% to $311.2 million.

The problem is that the online dating market is getting pretty saturated in the US.

So, as should be no surprise, Match.com is expanding into foreign territory. Today, the company announced that it is purchasing eDodo (China) and Netclub (France).

Of the two, the deal for eDodo looks to be the better one. The site has 180,000 paid members and is attracting 3,000 new ones every day. Of course, the market opportunity is massive with about 64 million online singles in China.

For the most part, Match.com has been growing its business organically. But, that's no easy feat. After all, dating certainly has its cultural nuances. Thus, buying online market leaders is a good idea (even if the valuations are at premium prices).

Expect more dealmaking in 2007.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

I read somewhere today that Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Personals is the number one dating service on the Internet. They say it's lonely at the top, but apparently singles using the site have been successful in quelling their loneliness -- just when I was certain that that internet dating stuff was bogus ...

Rivaled by Match.com, the Hoo's in Yahooville are working industriously to stay one step ahead of the game. They've recently added a new feature called "Quick View", which allows the user to scan for potential mates more quickly and efficiently. They are afforded the ability to mark off characteristics, (i.e., smoker, non-smoker) as "breaker" or "maker", this way any received profiles with 'breaker" traits will be labeled as such. And it's likely that the "breaker" will be discarded by the user - "Layta!". Sounds like a good deal, right? Quick, convenient, and it saves precious time. I don't think so. (Note: if you don't have the time to really get to know and evaluate a person, how will you have time for a relationship?)

First of all the whole idea of a first impression being based on a profile (a Quick View) -- mere words and check offs -- is whack. You can hardly trust people in person, let alone on paper.