moment since july 2016 life is short . have an affair . until july 2016 commercial yes type of site online dating service social network service registration yes available in chinese simplified and traditional czech danish dutch english filipino finnish french german greek hebrew hindi hungarian italian japanese korean norwegian polish portuguese brazilian and european russian slovenian spanish european american swedish turkish ukrainian users 46 million as of july 2016 update 1 owner ruby formerly known as avid life media launched 2001 2 alexa rank 4 404 aug 2016 update 3 current status active ashley madison or the ashley madison agency is a canada based online dating service and social networking service marketed to people who are married or in committed relationships . the ashley madison agency is the world s largest online social networking community of its kind that caters to people who are already in relationships but still want to date . 4 it was founded in 2002 by darren morgenstern . 4 its slogan is life is short . have an affair . 4 5 the name of the site was created from two popular female names ashley and madison . 5 the company received attention on july 15 2015 after hackers stole all of its customer data including emails names home addresses sexual fantasies and credit card information and threatened to post all the data online if ashley madison and fellow avid life media site establishedmen.com were not permanently closed . by july 22 the first names of customers were released by hackers 6 with all of the user data released on august 18 2015 . more data including some of the ceo s emails was released on august 20 2015 . the release included data from customers who had earlier paid a 19 fee to ashley madison to allegedly have their data deleted . 7 the fee was also applied to people who had accounts set up against their will as a workplace prank or because of a mistyped email address . 8 on august 28 2015 noel biderman agreed to step down as chief executive officer of avid life media inc. 9 a statement released by the firm said his departure was in the best interest of the company . 10 in july 2016 the parent company avid life media re branded itself to ruby corp. and appointed rob segal as the new ceo . in the same month the company dropped its signature tagline life is short . have an affair . to find your moment and updated its brand imagery to replace the image of a woman wearing a wedding ring with a red gem shaped symbol as its logo . 11 12 13 contents 1 membership 2 business model 3 criticism 3.1 guarantee 3.2 fake female bots accounts 3.3 advertising 4 lawsuits 5 data breach 6 see also 7 references 8 external links membership edit ashley madison is a membership website and service based in canada ; its membership includes 39 million people in 53 countries . 6 location countries north america canada usa 14 mexico 15 south america argentina 16 brazil 16 chile 16 colombia 16 peru 16 venezuela 16 western europe united kingdom 16 ireland 17 germany austria switzerland spain denmark italy netherlands france belgium malta portugal greece sweden finland norway 16 luxembourg 16 eastern europe and central asia latvia 16 slovakia 16 poland 16 hungary 16 estonia 16 czech republic 16 russia 16 ukraine 16 belarus 16 kazakhstan 16 oceania australia 18 new zealand 16 subsaharan africa south africa 19 east and southeast asia hong kong 1 macau 16 china 16 japan philippines taiwan south korea thailand 16 singapore 16 south asia india pakistan 16 middle east and north africa israel 16 the company announced plans to launch in singapore in 2014 . 1 however singapore s media development authority mda announced that it will not allow ashley madison to operate in singapore as it promotes adultery and disregards family values . 20 business model edit unlike match.com or eharmony ashley madison s business model is based on credits rather than monthly subscriptions . for a conversation between two members one of the members almost always the man must pay five credits to initiate the conversation . any follow up messages between the two members are free after the communication has been initiated . ashley madison also has a real time chat feature that is metered . credits are utilised to pay for a certain time allotment of chat . the site allows users to hide their account profiles for free . users looking to delete their accounts even those made without the individual s consent are charged a 19 fee . 8 21 the full delete option claims to remove user profiles all messages sent and received site usage history personally identifiable information and photos . 22 the data disclosures in 2015 revealed that this permanent deletion feature did not permanently delete anything and all data was recoverable . criticism edit trish mcdermott a consultant who helped found match.com accused ashley madison of being a business built on the back of broken hearts ruined marriages and damaged families . biderman responded by stating that the site is just a platform and a website or a commercial will not convince anyone to commit adultery . 5 23 according to biderman affairs help preserve many marriages . 24 guarantee edit ashley madison offers a guarantee that you will find someone we guarantee that you will successfully find what you re looking for or we ll give you your money back 25 in order to qualify users must purchase the most expensive package send more expensive priority messages to 18 unique members each month for three months send 5 ashley madison gifts per month and engage in 60 minutes of paid chat per month . 26 compounding the problem is that more men than women use the service with the disparity increasing as they advance in age and men seek sex while women seek passion . 27 a page on ashley madison entitled is ashley madison a scam is ashley madison a fraud addressed some of these issues in an attempt to win over prospective customers and teach them best practices for using the site . 28 segal and millership phased out the guarantee feature on july 5 2016 . it no longer appears on the company website advertising or promotion . 29 fake female bots accounts edit according to annalee newitz editor in chief of gizmodo who has analyzed the 2015 leaked data 30 ashley madison had over 70 000 bots sending fake female messages to male users . she had previously released an analysis purporting to show that only a minuscule proportion 12 000 out of 5.5 million registered female accounts were used on a regular basis 31 32 32 33 but she has subsequently disavowed this analysis saying that from the data released there is no way of determining how many women actually used the service . 34 newitz noted a clause in the terms of service which states that some accounts are for amusement purposes only . she says ashley madison does not go so far as to say they are fake but does admit that many profiles are for amusement only . 33 in 2012 a former employee claimed in a lawsuit that she was requested to create thousands of fake female accounts attractive to male customers resulting in repetitive stress injury . the case settled out of court . 33 in july 2016 ceo rob segal and newly appointed president james millership told reuters that the company had phased out bots by late 2015 . segal shared an independent report by ey ernst & young which verified the phase out . 29 35 advertising edit ashley madison employs guerrilla marketing techniques to advertise its site . one such technique has been the creation of fake criticism websites filled with ads for ashley madison and anonymous testimony that the site is legitimate . for example the site www.ashleymadisonscams.com was registered to ashley madison owner avid life . 36 ashley madison advertises with tv commercials billboards and radio ads by the ceo noel biderman . 5 tv ads described as cringe worthy 37 have been pulled from the air in some countries after frequent complaints . 38 39 some proposals turned down by the companies approached include a 1.5 million jersey sponsorship deal with italian basketball club virtus roma 40 a 10 million offer to rename phoenix s sky harbor airport 41 42 and an offer for the naming rights of new meadowlands stadium . 43 a statement denouncing proposed ads was made in 2009 when ashley madison attempted to purchase c 200 000 worth of advertising from the toronto transit commission ttc on the toronto streetcar system . 44 with five of six committee members voting against it the commissioner stated when it s a core fundamental value around cheating or lying we re not going to let those kinds of ads go on . 45 biderman offered to subsidize the ttc fare rate to 2.50 from 2.75 but the offer was declined . also in 2009 nbc refused an ad submitted by ashley madison for the network s broadcast of super bowl xliii . 46 lawsuits edit in 2012 the company was sued by former employee doriana silva who stated that in preparation for the launch of the company s portuguese language website she was assigned to create over a thousand bogus member profiles within a three week period in order to attract paying customers and that this caused her to develop repetitive stress injury . the lawsuit claimed that as a result silva developed severe pain in her wrists and forearms and has been unable to work since 2011 . 47 ashley madison countersued alleging fraud . the company claimed that silva had been photographed skiing an activity that was unlikely for someone who had suffered serious injury to the hands and forearms . 48 ashley madison later alleged further that silva had kept confidential documents and sought to retrieve them . in 2015 the ontario superior court dismissed the case without costs a result with which avi weisman vice president and general counsel for avid life media said the company was very pleased . 49 in august 2015 after its customer records were leaked by hackers a 576 million class action lawsuit was filed against the company . 50 data breach edit main article ashley madison data breach on july 15 2015 51 the site was hacked by a group known as the impact team . claiming that the security had always been weak the hackers claimed to have stolen personal information about the site s user base and threatened to release names home addresses search histories and credit card numbers if the site was not immediately shut down . the demand was driven by the site s policy of not deleting users personal information following their invoiced requests . 52 the first release validated by experts occurred on august 18 . 53 another release was made on august 20 but a 13 gb file which allegedly contained the emails of avid life media ceo noel biderman was corrupted . 54 this was corrected on august 21 when the impact team dumped biderman s emails in a separate 19 gb file . 55 some users reported receiving extortion emails 56 requesting 1.05 in bitcoins exactly c 300 to prevent the information from being shared with the user s significant other . 57 clinical psychologists argued that dealing with an affair in a particularly public way increases the hurt for spouses and children . 58 59 on august 24 the toronto police department spoke of two unconfirmed reports of suicides associated with the leak of customer profiles along with extortion attempts offering a 500 000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the hackers . 60 at least one suicide previously linked