‘John Doe’ Files a Potential Class Action Lawsuit Against Ashley Madison

Another potential class action lawsuit has been filed against Ashley Madison’s parent company Avid Life Media.

This time the plaintiff is an anonymous California resident and Ashley Madison user who goes by the name “John Doe.”

Doe is filing on behalf of all U.S. residents who signed up for the website, alleging that Ashley Madison did not take “necessary and reasonable precautions” regarding security. Among the plaintiff’s accusations, the class action complaint lists negligence and inflicting emotional distress.

The document refers to “the recent rise of massive security breaches on the Internet,” arguing that Avid Life Media should have been aware of the risk and taken precautions to prevent a security breach, especially considering the “particularly sensitive” information users trusted the site to protect.

Ashley Madison supposedly offered a $19 “scrub” option that promised to delete users profiles so they would be untraceable. The suit alleges that Avid Life Media simply collected the money and neglected to scrub the profiles. Doe also accuses the company of not informing users of the breach in a timely manner and neglecting to inform them of its extent.

The lawsuit follows a recent hack of the Ashley Madison website by a group called the Impact Team, which downloaded “highly sensitive personal, financial, and identifying information of the website’s some 37 million users,” the lawsuit said.

The hacker group said it would make the information public if the website was not shut down in August.

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