NY State is suing Ashley Madison over it’s “Full Delete”. Ashley Madison was charging users $19 if they wanted to be completely deleted from the website, however… they never actually completely removed you. Which of course compounded when they were hacked in 2015 and the databases were leaked which revealed active users personal accounts, the ‘supposed’ deleted accounts as well as the fake accounts that were on the site.
Which leads us to wondering, should AshleyMadison.com be closed for good? Should they be used as an example of what not to do?
Following last year’s massive data breach, the owner of the pro-adultery website Ashley Madison agreed to pay an FTC fine of $17.5 million for its “reckless disregard for data security.” But the company couldn’t afford to pay that much, so the government is reducing it to just $1.7 million, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said today. The payment will be divided among the states and the FTC. New York will receive $81,330.
Following the hack, which exposed the personal information of millions of users, the website’s Toronto-based parent company, Avid Life Media, rebranded itself as Ruby Corp.
But… should they have fined Ashley Madison the entire amount? Ashley Madison / Avid Life Media would have been able to be used as an example to future web services to actually protect user data.
Remember this company is the one who had fake accounts to trick users into paying, and then leaked the entirety of their website, databases and all.
We think until companies are truly held accountable for their actions, there needs to be one that is used as an example for what happens when you have weak security.
