Related Articles
The wildly popular docuseries “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal” details missteps the scandalous company has made while essentially proving there is no such thing as bad publicity.
“One of the things we know for sure is that when people discover that Ashley Madison exists, or for some people still exists, their interest is piqued,” Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable told Fox News Digital.
Ashley Madison, a controversial dating site for married users that uses the slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair,” promised anonymity and security. But in 2015, the identities of members were famously revealed by nefarious hackers, and countless lives were upended in the process. The Netflix docuseries leaves viewers wondering how the company survived such a devastating ordeal.
Controversial online dating service Ashley Madison, which caters to married people, uses the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair.” (Ashley Madison)
“For those who are considering the limitations of monogamy as it pertains to their relationship, for a lot of them, they’re going to say, ‘Maybe this is the place for me,’” Keable said, noting that the company has made efforts to rebuild trust.
“Over the past nine-plus years, our simple and only stated goal is to deliver on the promise to our membership to create a community of like-minded people that is rooted in discretion. And so obviously, security and privacy are at the forefront of every single thing we do,” he continued. “Every new product, every new feature, every fundamental aspect of our business starts with that as a conversation piece, and it’s embedded in everything we do.”
As detailed in “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal,” the company was hacked by a group called “The Impact Team,” which the documentary theorized may have just been one person, possibly an employee of the site’s parent company, Avid Life Media. Unless the company shuttered its business within 30 days, the group demanded, they would release its users’ data on the “dark web.”
Nearly 40 million people were exposed when Ashley Madison, a dating site marketed to adulterers, had a data breach in 2015. (Netflix)
Although the company hired a cybersecurity team, they did not meet the hackers’ demands. Seven days later, the hacker group followed through on the threats, releasing data that included information from people who believed they had deleted their accounts entirely — a service that the company charged money for, according to the documentary.
Ashley Madison has seen an increase in membership since the documentary was released,according to Keable, who said discretion is now “the most important promise” that the company makes to its 85 million users.
“We know what it looks like and feels like when we let our members down, and we’re committed to that never happening again,” he said.
“They’d say, Who’s your biggest competitor? And I’d say, The Bible,” former Ashley Madison vice president of sales Evan Back, pictured, says in the docuseries. (Netflix)
Keable called the docuseries “salacious,” and thinks people will find it fascinating that the company has continued to grow. He said more than 50 million people have joined since the 2015 data breach.
“Despite our past, despite some of the missteps we’ve taken … our service is in demand and what we offer is desired,” he said.
“Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal” is streaming on Netflix.
Fox News Digital’s Christina Coulter contributed to this report.
Brian Flood is a media editor/reporter for FOX News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.
