Ashley Madison , or The Ashley Madison Agency , is Canada's online dating service and social networking service that is marketed to married people or in relationships.
Founded in 2002 by Darren Morgenstern, with the slogan: "Life is short, cheating." The name comes from two popular female names in North America, "Ashley" and "Madison."
The company got attention on July 15, 2015, after hackers stole all of their customer data - including emails, names, home addresses, sexual fantasies, and credit card information - and threatened to post data online if Ashley Madison and fellow Avid Life FoundMen media sites. com is not permanently closed. On July 22, the first set of customer names was released by hackers, with all user data released on August 18, 2015. More data (including some CEO emails) was released on August 20, 2015. This release contains data from customers who previously paid a $ 19 to Ashley Madison who should have their data deleted. This fee also applies to people who have accounts that are set against their wishes, as a joke at work, or because of a typo email address.
On August 28, 2015, Noel Biderman agreed to resign as chief executive officer of Avid Life Media Inc. A statement issued by the company said that his departure was "in the best interest of the company".
In July 2016, parent company Avid Life Media re-branded itself to Ruby Corp and appointed Rob Segal as its new CEO. In the same month, the company changed the signature tagline of "Life is Short. Have an Affair." to "Discover your moment," and update its brand image to replace the image of a woman wearing a wedding ring with a red gem-shaped symbol as her logo.
Video Ashley Madison
Membership
Ashley Madison is a Canadian-based website and membership service; Its membership includes 39 million people in 53 countries.
The company announced plans to launch in Singapore in 2014. However, Singapore Media Development Authority (MDA) announced that it would not allow Ashley Madison to operate in Singapore for "promoting adultery and ignoring family values".
Maps Ashley Madison
Business model
Unlike Match.com or eHarmony, Ashley Madison's business model is based on credits rather than monthly subscriptions. For conversations between two members, one member - almost always a man - must pay five credits to start a conversation. Any follow-up messages between the two members are free after the communication starts. Ashley Madison also has a real-time chat feature in which credits buy a certain time quota.
This site allows users to hide their account profiles for free. Users who want to delete their accounts, even those created without individual consent, are charged $ 19. The "full delete" option claims to delete user profiles, all sent and received messages, site usage history, personally identifiable information, and photos. Disclosure of data by 2015 reveals that this permanent "permanent deletion" feature does not permanently delete anything, and all data can be recovered.
Criticism
Trish McDermott, a consultant who helped find Match.com, accused Ashley Madison of being "a business built on broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken families". Biderman responded by stating that the site is "just a platform" and a website or advertisement will not convince anyone to commit adultery. According to Biderman, business helps preserve many marriages.
Warranty
Ashley Madison offers assurance that users will "find someone": "We GUARANTEE that you will succeed in finding what you are looking for or we will give your money back" To be eligible, users must purchase the most expensive package, send a more expensive "priority" message to 18 unique members every month for three months, sending 5 Ashley Madison prizes per month, and engaging in 60 minutes of paid chat per month. The problem is that "more men than women use services, with disparities increasing with age," and "Men are looking for sex, while women are looking for passion." The page in Ashley Madison, entitled "Is Ashley Madison a scam? Is Ashley Madison a scam?" discuss some of these issues in an attempt to win potential customers and teach them best practices for using the site.
Segal and Millership are gradually removing the warranty feature on July 5, 2016. It no longer appears on corporate websites, ads or promotions.
Fake female Bots account
According to Annalee Newitz, Chief Editor of Gizmodo, who has analyzed data leaked in 2015, Ashley Madison has more than 70,000 bots sending fake letters to male users. He has previously released an analysis that aims to show that only a small portion (12,000 of 5.5 million) registered women's accounts are used on a regular basis, but he later denied this analysis, saying that from the released data there is no way of determining how much women who actually use the service.
Newitz notes a clause in the terms of service stating that some accounts are for entertainment purposes only. He said Ashley Madison did not go as far as to say they were fake, but "does not recognize that many profiles are only for 'entertainment'".
In 2012, a former employee claimed in a demand that he was asked to create thousands of fake female accounts that appeal to male customers, resulting in repetitive stress injuries. This case was settled out of court.
In July 2016, CEO Rob Segal and newly appointed James Millership President told Reuters that the company had abolished the bots by the end of 2015. Segal shared an independent report by EY (Ernst & Young) who verified this abolition.
Ads
Ashley Madison uses guerilla marketing techniques to advertise his site. One such technique is the creation of a fake critique site filled with advertisements for Ashley Madison and anonymous testimony that the site is legitimate. For example, the site "www.AshleyMadisonScams.com" has been registered to the owner of Ashley Madison, Avid Life.
Ashley Madison advertises with TV commercials, billboards, and radio ads by CEO, Noel Biderman. TV commercials, described as horrified, have been withdrawn from the air in some countries after frequent complaints. Several proposals were rejected by the company approached including a EUR1.5 million sponsorship deal with Italian basketball club Virtus Roma, a $ 10 million bid to rename Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and an offer for New Meadowlands Stadium naming rights.
A statement denouncing the proposed ad was made in 2009 when Ashley Madison attempted to buy a C $ 200,000 ad from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) on the Toronto tram system. With five of the six committee members voting against it, the commissioner stated, "When it is a fundamental core value of cheating or deceit, we will not allow such advertising to continue." Biderman offered to subsidize the TTC tariff to $ 2.50 from $ 2.75 but the offer was rejected.
Also in 2009, NBC rejected an ad submitted by Ashley Madison for the Super Bowl XLIII network broadcast.
Legal Charges
In 2012, the company was sued by former employee Doriana Silva, stating that in preparation for the launch of the company's Portuguese-speaking website, he was assigned to make over a thousand profiles of fake members in a three-week period to attract attention. paying customers, and this causes him to experience repetitive stress injuries. The suit claims that as a result Silva "developed severe pain in his wrist and forearm," and has been unable to work since 2011. The company retaliated, accusing the fraud. The company claims that Silva has photographed jet-skiing, an activity that is impossible for someone who has suffered serious injuries in the hands and forearms. Ashley Madison then accused further that Silva had kept the secret documents and tried to retrieve them.
In 2015, the Ontario High Court canceled a no-cost case, a result by Avi Weisman, vice president and general counsel for Avid Life Media, said the company was "very happy."
In August 2015, after customer records were leaked by hackers, a $ 576 million class-action lawsuit was filed against the company.
Data violations
On July 15, 2015, the site was hacked by a group known as the "Impact Team". Claiming that its security is always weak, hackers claim to have stolen personal information about the site's user base, and threatened to release their name, home address, search history, and credit card numbers if the site does not close immediately. The request is driven by the site's policy of not removing the user's personal information after the request is being billed.
The first release, validated by experts, took place on August 18th. Another release was made on August 20, but the 13 GB file - which allegedly contained Avid Life Media's CEO Noel Biderman - broke down. This was fixed on August 21, when the Impact Team dumped Biderman's email in a separate 19 GB file.
Some users report receiving extortion emails asking for 1.05 in bitcoin (exactly C $ 300) to prevent information being shared with other important users. Clinical psychologists argue that dealing with infidelity in a very common way increases the pain for spouses and children. On August 24, the Toronto Police Department spoke of "two unconfirmed suicide reports" linked to a leak in customer profiles along with extortion attempts, offering a $ 500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of hackers. At least one suicide previously associated with Ashley Madison has since been reported because "stress is entirely linked to problems at work that have nothing to do with data leakage".
CEO Rob Segal said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the company is investing continuously to improve privacy and security protection, including partnerships with cyber security team Deloitte. Segal also announced new wise payment options, including Skrill, Neteller and Paysafe cards.
See also
- Comparison of online dating sites
- Illicit Encounters, a similar UK online dating site for married people
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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