Infidelity website Ashley Madison facing federal investigation

The parent company of infidelity dating site Ashley Madison, hit by a devastating hack last year, is now the target of a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation, the new executives seeking to revive its credibility have revealed. The breach, which exposed the personal details of millions who signed up for the site with the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair”, cost Avid Life Media more than a quarter of its revenue, Chief Executive Rob Segal and President James Millership revealed in an interview, the first by any senior executive since the incident. An Ernst & Young report commissioned by Avid and shared with Reuters confirmed that Avid used computer programs, dubbed fembots, that impersonated real women, striking up conversations with paying male customers.

We certainly feel that the Ashley Madison brand can be repositioned… a vastly different approach to how she is marketed.

Chief Executive Rob Segal

Avid shut down the fake profiles in the United States, Canada and Australia in 2014, and by late 2015 in the rest of the world, but some U.S. users had message exchanges with foreign fembots until late in 2015, according to the report. Another dating site paid $616,165 in redress for similar practices in an October 2014 settlement with the FTC. The two executives, hired in April, said the closely held company is spending millions to improve security and looking at payment options that offer more privacy. But it faces a mountain of problems, including U.S. and Canadian class action lawsuits filed on behalf of customers whose personal information was posted online, and allegations that it used fake profiles to manipulate some customers.

Whatever they are going to do to prove to me that they are safe or anything, I wouldn’t put no more money in there.

Serge Saumur, a lead plaintiff in the Canadian civil case

Ashley Madison