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Security Businesses The Almighty Buck

Ashley Madison Parent in $11.2 Million Settlement Over Data Breach (reuters.com) 78

Posted by msmash from the Life-is-short,-have-a-settlement dept.
From a report: The owner of the Ashley Madison adultery website said on Friday it will pay $11.2 million to settle U.S. litigation brought on behalf of roughly 37 million users whose personal details were exposed in a July 2015 data breach. Ruby Corp, formerly known as Avid Life Media Inc, denied wrongdoing in agreeing to the preliminary class-action settlement, which requires approval by a federal judge in St. Louis. Ashley Madison marketed itself as a means to help people, primarily men, cheat on their spouses, and was known for its slogan "Life is short. Have an affair."
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Ashley Madison Parent in $11.2 Million Settlement Over Data Breach More

Ashley Madison Parent in $11.2 Million Settlement Over Data Breach

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  • cheap (Score:5, Funny)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Saturday July 15, 2017 @07:06AM (#54813371)
    " $11.2 million to settle U.S. litigation brought on behalf of roughly 37 million users "

    Here's a quarter, kid. Go away.

    • True but anyone looking to undermine their own marriage really isn't deserving of money let alone pity.

      • Two wrongs don't make a right. Also, many married people cheat.

        • While your statement is true, I was left wondering if you actually meant "swing" instead of "cheat".

          • I meant cheat, as in "doing sexual things with others that your partner doesn't want to". While this definitely includes fucking others when you claim you don't, it also includes some cases of swinging where one partner (surprisingly, in my 40+ circles, it's usually the female one) coerces the other into going along with it.

            • Coercion is not cheating - there are many reasons one may not really want to but still does, often to keep the relationship intact. Neither is every instance of your partner not knowing cheating simply because some may end up liking it, some may not want to know.

              Cheating imho is going against the explicit wishes of the other party without their knowledge although those wishes are often established through contract law (marriage).

        • Two wrongs don't make a right.

          I never claimed it was right, just that I feel they are undeserving of money or pity.

          Also, many married people cheat.

          You speak as if that somehow makes it less wrong.

          • You speak as if that somehow makes it less wrong.

            Having an affair is not illegal. Whether it is "wrong" or not is none of your business unless you are one of the people in the relationship. You should learn to focus on your own life, and be less judgemental about other people.

            Look around the world. People have affairs everywhere. But how much people are publicly subjected to the moral judgement of others varies widely and is negatively correlated with quality of life. Would you rather live in Saudi Arabia? Learn to be tolerant, and mind your own bus

            • Having an affair is not illegal. Whether it is "wrong" or not is none of your business unless you are one of the people in the relationship.

              Actually, as a fellow member of society, I have a vested interest in maintaining the current perception that people having affairs be reviled.

              You should learn to focus on your own life, and be less judgemental about other people.

              You are judging me for judging others and telling me that I shouldn't! Your hypocrisy is quite delicious. :)

              Look around the world. People have affairs everywhere. But how much people are publicly subjected to the moral judgement of others varies widely and is negatively correlated with quality of life.

              And?

              Would you rather live in Saudi Arabia?

              A non-sequitur? How cute!

              Learn to be tolerant,

              Get yourself a dictionary because there is a large difference between tolerating people and accepting their bad behavior. I tolerate them just fine.

              and mind your own business.

              Nah, you can fuck right off. ;)

            • Having an affair is not illegal. Whether it is "wrong" or not is none of your business unless you are one of the people in the relationship.

              It's still a public health issue. STDs exist, basic human compassion dictates caring about friends and even strangers having their health unknowingly endangered.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Spoken like a true caveman.

      • Re: cheap (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Disagree.

        Marriage is different things to different people. This is 2017 and I have raised my children to mate with someone who will make good parents for their children... and when the kids are grown up, they should either stay with each other or go their separate ways.

        Marriage is generate associated with reproduction. Depending on your culture or religion, polygamy could be acceptable if not preferred by all parties involved. There are many advantages to polygamy as it builds a far stronger family and also

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      " $11.2 million to settle U.S. litigation brought on behalf of roughly 37 million users "

      Here's a quarter, kid. Go away.

      It looks like the money is first come first served, with lawyer first to come:
      "Lawyers for Ashley Madison users may receive up to one-third of the $11.2 million payout to cover legal fees, court papers show."

      After that it's:
      "... users with valid claims can recoup up to $3,500 depending on how well they can document their losses attributable to the breach."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CRC'99 ( 96526 )

        It looks like the money is first come first served, with lawyer first to come

        Ironically, the lawyers have probably come more times than the people who had their data breached......

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious ( 953874 )

      Is that 37 million users in the US? I.e. 11% of the entire(!) population?
      Might actually turn out to be 2 (two!) quarters per US, while Ashley Madison may be liable in other countries too...

      • US population of 18+ is ~230M in 2010 (US. Census Bureau). 49% of that is ~112M.

        Class action lawsuit on behalf of the ~37M "users" whose details were exposed. Do we know how many of those 37M were dupes, fake, outside the US, or otherwise invalid? Is 50% a reasonable SWAG? If 19M were legit we're basically looking at about 1 in 6 men in the adult population had an AM account.

        That number seems high to me, but what do I know. (My wife keeps telling me "Jon Snow, you know nothing.")

        • That number seems high to me, but what do I know. (My wife keeps telling me "Jon Snow, you know nothing.")

          Won't anyone think of the poor fembots that made up most of what the men chatted with?

    • Here's a quarter, kid. Go away.

      Ahh, a two bit relationship.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      And to claim yours, judging by the usual verbiage of such settlement agreements, the victims would have to list, when they opened an account, what their username was, how much they paid and other details... And it will, probably, all become part of the official record somewhere — not just buried in a database dump on "Dark Web".

      No one expects anyone other than the lawyers to get paid. But that may be good enough — because the point here was not to compensate the victims, but to punish the wrong

      • No one expects anyone other than the lawyers to get paid.

        Class action lawsuits don't work that way. There is almost always a requirement that a minimum percentage of the "class" needs to accept the settlement for the payout to be triggered. If not enough victims sign-on, then the plaintiff lawyers get nothing.

        They may have difficulty reaching the threshold, since many of the accounts likely have bogus or outdated contact info.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mi ( 197448 )
          It may happen... Or they may ask the judge to lower the requirement because of the special circumstances of the case — and look for the already-divorced among the victims...

          • Or they may ask the judge to lower the requirement ../

            RTFS. It is a settlement. A judge can accept or reject it, but cannot change it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. The sum is at the very least missing 3 zeros. As long as data-breaches can be laughed off in this fashion, nothing is going to change.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ark1 ( 873448 )
      Don't forget to give some change back to the lawyers.
    • Hey now, that's not nothing. It's almost a tenth of what their CEO is worth!!! [celebritynetworth.com]

      Also appears you'll need to prove you were affected with documentation in order to collect it. Of course I guess if it was already in the divorce proceedings, that shouldn't be too hard.

  • Low (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ~31 cents per claimant.
    Wow.

  • The real story: fake users. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15, 2017 @07:11AM (#54813393)

    The real con here is not a data breach, it is the fact that they systematically generated fake female accounts to lure in paying male customers. This is outright fraud and they get away with it.
     

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They have a great business model. Commit fraud, and their customers are too embarrassed and have too much to lose to admit they were victims.

    • The real con here is not a data breach, it is the fact that they systematically generated fake female accounts to lure in paying male customers. This is outright fraud and they get away with it.

      The real con was convincing people they can have (or look for) affairs without consequences.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        You'd think so, but that is a very classic piece of selective perception. Since we almost always (unless we are involved) see only the affairs that come to light, we assume that most if not all affairs do, eventually.

        But what is your guess about the number of affairs that nobody except those involved ever finds out about? You seriously think that is a low number? Got any evidence for that except wishful thinking?

        • But what is your guess about the number of affairs that nobody except those involved ever finds out about? You seriously think that is a low number? Got any evidence for that except wishful thinking?

          Who said they had to be found out for there to be consequences?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            The context of the posting. Come on, that was a really cheap attempt at dodging the question.

            • The context of the posting. Come on, that was a really cheap attempt at dodging the question.

              I don't care about the question. It could be 5% or 95% of affairs are found out and it doesn't change that fact that somebody broke his or her word and that harms those who depend on that person and, most of all, it harms the people directly involved.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by Tom ( 822 )

                and, most of all, it harms the people directly involved.

                The cheater and his/her lover? Not sure if they agree that they are harmed.

                The subject is much more complex than the simple moralistic approach. There are many cases where affairs destroyed or seriously harmed relationships. There are many cases where it harmed relationships, but the damage could be repaired. There are also cases where affairs helped or even saved relationships, because through the affair finally some deep-seated issues came to light.

                There are also many, many people who divorced or split be

    • More concretely, they also charged money to delete your account, then didn't delete anything. [wikipedia.org]

      Almost like the company set up this whole thing just out of disdain for their customer base of cheating dudes. Which, okay sure, but still bad idea even if there weren't innocent people caught up in it.
  • Wonder how many of those $.25 checks are going to get cashed.

  • The other half goes in the divorce settlement.

  • And what would they use it for more stack, RAM or a prioritized path to cache?

  • ... 83% of the "37 million accounts" were fembots.

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