Penn Marriage Pact issues cease and desist to Penn Date Drop, alleging plagiarized language

Penn Marriage Pact issued a cease and desist to the creators of Penn Date Drop, alleging that the new matchmaking service accessed years of internal Marriage Pact emails before launching its own product.

As part of the proceedings, Penn Marriage Pact — an online matchmaking service — provided a list of exhibits showcasing the hundreds of emails it alleges Date Drop used to build its product. According to a document, which was obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian, select features and language in Date Drop’s rollout this fall closely resembled previous emails sent by Penn Marriage Pact. 

Penn Marriage Pact is an annual campus-wide matchmaking survey that promises to algorithmically pair students with their optimal romantic partner based on values, priorities, and relationship preferences. The questionnaire circulates every fall and uses email to maintain communication with participants. 

The most recent cycle, held this October, brought in almost 5,000 students — marking the service’s fifth year on campus.

In a statement to the DP, Marriage Pact founder Liam McGregor alleged that reviews of the service’s email logs revealed that Date Drop founder Henry Weng reopened dozens of Marriage Pact emails “going back all four years” in the month before releasing his service on Penn’s campus. 

Requests for comment were left with Weng and Date Drop co-creator Madhav Prakash. 

In the exhibits, Penn Marriage Pact disclosed screenshots of email logs alongside side-by-side comparisons of the two companies’ questionnaires, email designs, and privacy policy language.

McGregor wrote that in addition to the questionnaire format and email templates, Date Drop’s “secret admirers” feature appeared to borrow certain structures or phrasing from Marriage Pact materials. 

He added that Date Drop’s creators publicly marketed their service as “Marriage Pact but weekly,” referencing a widely circulated announcement on Stanford’s Fizz and Penn’s Sidechat — anonymous social media platforms for students.

College junior and Penn Marriage Pact organizer Manasi Gajjalapurna wrote in a statement to the DP that Penn Marriage Pact has become “one of Penn’s biggest traditions since 2021,” describing it as the University’s “market for finding your optimal marital backup plan.” 

According to Gajjalapurna, there have been 22,658 “unique verified Penn undergraduate signups” since 2017 — including 3,532 this year — and “89% of undergrads do [Marriage Pact] during their four years here.”

“There’s a lot of great things worth doing to create meaningful relationships on campus,” McGregor wrote. “We’d just prefer everyone do their own thing.”