The Maserati-driving CEO of the Ashley Madison adultery site has divorced himself from the company, following the discovery that he betrayed the trust of his cheating customers, his monied shareholders, his well-paid board and his self-serving wife.
A deep dive into the subscriber data by Annalee Newitz of Gizmodo suggests there were even fewer female subscribers than previously believed – in fact, she could only find evidence that about 12,000 out of 37 million total profiles belonged to “real women who were active users of Ashley Madison.”
The Canadians are suing because Ashley Madison failed to protect the privacy of its users. The suit directly references the service that charged clients an extra fee to completely and permanently delete their information, but clearly did nothing of the sort, since people who paid the fee are included in the client list posted online. This was, not coincidentally, the primary charge leveled by the Impact Team hackers who stole, and ultimately released, the Ashley Madison subscriber database.
It will come as no surprise that Internet scam artists, quick to take advantage of every public concern, are looking to prey upon those who fear their husbands or wives might be listed in the database of Ashley Madison clients disclosed by hackers.
For all the swinging “progressive” talk about how Ashley Madison could be seen as a positive force, or even an instrument for improving the quality of marriage by helping us get over our sexual hangups – much of that talk emanating from the purveyors of the site, of course – what actually happened when that client list leaked out? Shame. Deep, deep waves of shame, rolling across the globe.
The “Impact Team” hackers who stole client information from adultery website Ashley Madison have made good on their threat to release the information. It reportedly contains over fifteen thousand government and military email addresses.