{"id":2832,"date":"2015-09-10T14:25:03","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T14:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jolt.richmond.edu\/?p=2832"},"modified":"2019-03-08T19:52:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-09T00:52:21","slug":"anonymity-online-but-not-in-the-courtroom-problems-with-ashley-madison-class-action-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/2015\/09\/10\/anonymity-online-but-not-in-the-courtroom-problems-with-ashley-madison-class-action-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: Anonymity Online, But Not in the Courtroom: Problems with Ashley Madison Class-Action Lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ashley<\/a><\/p>\n

By: Meghan Murphy,<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is short. Have an affair\u201d: the estimated 37 million users exposed in the recent Ashley Madison hack know this slogan intimately.[1]<\/a> On July 15, 2015, a group calling themselves \u201cImpact Team\u201d hacked extramarital affair site Ashley Madison, and exposed customer information of millions of users, not to mention the emails of Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison parent company Avid Life Media Inc.[2]<\/a> The released data shows a wide breadth of users, including some using government email addresses.[3]<\/a> While some have light-heartedly enjoyed the schadenfreude of (potential) extramarital cheaters being exposed for their sins, the hack has also had devastating consequences: as of August 24, Toronto police are investigating two suicides believed to be linked to the hack.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Two of the largest complaints from hacked users point to Ashley Madison\u2019s mediocre data security system and the company\u2019s failure to fulfill promises of permanently deleting customer data. Impact Team has claimed that the \u201cFull Delete\u201d service offered by Ashley Madison for a $19 fee to permanently wipe a customer\u2019s account from the database was a fallacy, with the company retaining all of that customer\u2019s information\u2014including credit card numbers and home addresses.[5]<\/a> If this is true, and Ashley Madison negligently (or willfully) retained customer information after promising to permanently destroy the data, the company could be in even deeper waters. Coupled with the \u201cFull Delete\u201d fallacy, Ashley Madison\u2019s negligence in protecting such sensitive customer data points to a high probability of either damages or a huge settlement paid to the exposed users.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Large-scale class action lawsuits have already been filed in California, Missouri and Texas, with the largest filed in Canada by Eliot Shore, seeking $578 million in damages.[7]<\/a> While Shore has conveniently taken the fall for his fellow Ashley Madison users, all of the class-action complaints filed against the company in the United States list John or Jane Doe as the plaintiff.[8]<\/a> Due to the sensitive nature of the lawsuits, it may be difficult to find an individual class representative willing to expose themselves like Shore, as there is no guarantee that a federal court will permit the plaintiffs to remain anonymous.[9]<\/a> If forced to reveal themselves, plaintiffs run the risk of further damage to their reputation and immense embarrassment. Anonymous or not, plaintiffs will regardless face possible jury bias, as most already see the exposed users in a distasteful way.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

Exposed data is always a touchy subject, but even more so in this case due to the scandalous nature of the hacked website. Most likely, the Ashley Madison suits will lead to a settlement like those currently underway regarding the recent Sony hacks. Whether judge and jury will look more harshly on the plaintiffs bringing suit against Ashley Madison remains to be seen\u2014and whether the courts will allow anonymous plaintiffs in such a suit could change the course of litigation and settlement. It\u2019s easy to be comfortably anonymous online, and not so easy in a courtroom under national scrutiny\u2014a cautionary tale for all in an increasingly digital age.<\/p>\n

For more information on the consequences of cyber-cheating, please see Micala MacRae\u2019s post \u201cVirtual Adultery: The World of Cyber-Cheating\u201d here on the JOLT Blog (http:\/\/jolt.richmond.edu\/index.php\/blog-virtual-adultery-the-world-of-cyber-cheating\/).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>Simon Thomsen, \u201cExtramarital affair website Ashley Madison has been hacked and attackrs are threatening to leak data online,\u201d Business Insider (July 20, 2015), http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/cheating-affair-website-ashley-madison-hacked-user-data-leaked-2015-7.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>Dave Boyer, \u201cThousands of Ashley Madison clients used government email addresses,\u201d Washington Times (Aug. 19, 2015), http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2015\/aug\/19\/government-email-addresses-linked-ashley-madison-c\/.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Chris Baraniuk, \u201cAshley Madison: \u2018Suicides\u2019 over website hack,\u201d BBC (Aug. 24, 2015), http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-34044506.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Thomsen, supra<\/em> note 1.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Paul Callan, \u201cAshley Madison: Costly end of the affair,\u201d CNN (Aug. 25, 2015), http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/08\/24\/opinions\/callan-ashley-madison-hack\/.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Kim Zetter, \u201cAshley Madison hit with $500 million in lawsuits,\u201d Wired.com (Aug. 25, 2015), http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/08\/ashley-madison-hit-500-million-lawsuits\/.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Austin Siegemund-Broka, \u201cA Tale of Two Hacks: How Ashley Madison\u2019s Legal Woes Differ From Sony\u2019s,\u201d The Hollywood Rep. (Sep. 4, 2015), http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/thr-esq\/a-tale-two-hacks-how-819827?utm_source=twitter.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Callan, supra<\/em> note 6.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo Source: \u00a0http:\/\/clapway.com\/2015\/07\/20\/37-million-cheaters-at-risk-of-being-exposed-after-ashley-madison-hack-222\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Meghan Murphy, \u201cLife is short. Have an affair\u201d: the estimated 37 million users exposed in the recent Ashley Madison hack know this slogan intimately.[1] On July 15, 2015, a group calling themselves \u201cImpact Team\u201d hacked extramarital affair site Ashley Madison, and exposed customer information of millions of users, not to mention the emails of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51366],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paMHOZ-JG","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}