Ashley Madison, a dating site that enables spouses to surreptitiously arrange extramarital affairs, suspended fees for users who want to delete their accounts, after hackers threatened to publicly expose millions of users on Monday.
The company insisted that the delete option, which normally carries a $19 fee, would fully wipe clean the user’s personal data.
“The process involves a hard-delete of a requesting user’s profile, including the removal of posted pictures and all messages sent to other system users’ email boxes,” the website said in an official statement.
A hacker ring identified as the Impact Team warned on Monday that it would begin leaking “credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails” in order to expose “cheating dirtbags.”
Ashley Madison offered a second apology to users in a public statement released on its website on Tuesday.
“We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information,” the statement read. “We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place, including working with leading IT vendors from around the world.”
- Here’s How Effective the Original Vaccines Are Against Omicron
- The Promise—And Possible Perils—of Editing What We Say Online
- How Trump Survived Decades of Legal Trouble: Deny, Deflect, Delay, and Don't Put Anything in Writing
- Flint Is Still Shaken by its Water Crisis—and Residents Are Experiencing Long-Term Mental-Health Issues
- A Beer Shortage Is Brewing. A Volcano Is Partly to Blame
- How Fasting Can—and Can't—Improve Gut Health
- Cities Keep Enforcing Curfews for Teens, Despite Evidence They Don't Stop Crime
- Joe Manchin’s Red Tape Reform Could Supercharge Renewable Energy in the U.S.
- Column: We Should Talk More About What a Brilliant Actor Marilyn Monroe Was
