Early Tuesday morning, Reuters broke the news that AvidLife news, the mother company of affair-driven dating/hookup internet site Ashley Madison, has become undergoing a probe by the U . S . government Trade Commission. While AvidLife formally “said it doesn’t understand the focus of its very own FTC examination,” it is easier than you think to figure out what exactly is at problems right here.
About last year, in July 2015, Ashley Madison was hacked by friends referred to as results teams. The hackers proceeded to jeopardize to leak the site’s consumer list if AvidLife news didn’t closed both Ashley Madison and sibling website Set up guys, which in theory connected youthful “sugar baby” girls with old, wealthier, “sugar daddy” boys. The database is soon released…which got just the tip of the iceberg.
The first, most immediate and clear worry had been the organization’s option to spend to completely remove a free account performedn’t appear to actually do something. Exposing the truth behind the “paid deletion” choice ended up being shortly shared to-be a primary motive in tool. The next was actually something which was indeed suspected but had been difficult to show until Gizmodo’s Annalen Newitz crunched the rates when you look at the databases:
Your huge, majority of feminine reports didn’t fit in with real people, much less genuine people. Cross-referencing aspects of grievances into California attorneys General aided by the site’s resource code resulted in further verification. While already terrible, it’s even worse when you consider that you have to spend higher to send/reply to messages, even though they were delivered by Ashley Madison robots.
Unusually, although the passionate lives news advised Reuters they performedn’t know very well what the FTC study focuses on, Ashley Madison’s CEO said normally. Rob Segal, the CEO in question, ended up being cited as stating that the “fembot” allegation are “a part of the ongoing procedure that we’re going right through … it is because of the FTC today.”
In Sep 2014, Jason Koebler of Motherboard presented a Freedom of info operate ask for “all complaints from 2015 into the Federal Trade Commission concerning the providers Avid lives Media” and rapidly have an answer, with files arriving simply time after. The grievances vary wildly: Some people merely notifying the FTC with the hack causing all of the personal details that has been boating the world-wide-web. Other individuals, however, have most specific dilemmas, along these lines man who wanted the FTC to work alongside foreign governments to make use of their particular forces to censor the world-wide-web, otherwise “families [will getting] split up,” “breadwinners potentislly lose work,” and “tourism will surely drop.” As an example:
This really is regarding the ashley madison data drip. However, like many people i’d like our ideas as at the very least significantly minimal. Theres too many people doxxing & publishing links to the information, im confident that the FTC has some skill here. In addition Id suppose other countries would work together with the FTC like family tend to be split up & breadwinners potentislly get rid of their job, tourist will certainly drop. Please let me know thst thungs are being out in location to block this type of links/sites & anything has to venture out to social networking sites as FB & Twitter are letting men and women to send the records & from ehstbi [sp?] read thsts [sic] illegal.
Obviously, there were also less 
humorous problems:
- a resident concerned about consumers impersonating people for a variety of nefarious grounds after some body signed up for a visibility using his/her term, image, and contact details.
- One Columbus, Ohio-based complainant implored the FTC to investigate the robot addresses as early as 2011 (props into FTC for, at the least theoretically, creating over Koebler requested in the first place).
- The master of the now-defunct AshleyMadisonSucks.com alleging that Avid existence news engaged in a harassment venture against your, a subject that Koebler secure thoroughly.
There’s additionally a clear matter that comes to mind reading the FTC response to the FOIA consult: are there really and truly just two grievances about Ashley Madison and its cousin websites after the hack and simply five inside their entire life?
Even accounting for your customers probably are concerned about their particular confidentiality (though the FTC redacted all private information), that seems awfully lower. Fortunately, however, it would appear that the FTC has been passionate to do something none the less, even if they would not problem a comment to Reuters in regards to the investigation.