Adult Friend Finder Class Action Says Swinger Website Wasn’t Discreet With User Info

A class action lawsuit against Adult Friend Finder alleging that the adult swinger website failed to protect user information in a 2016 data breach was removed to federal court this week.

Plaintiff Alejandro Gutierrez filed the class action lawsuit against FriendFinder Networks Inc. over claims that the company failed to protect decades worth of user information in an October 2016 data breach.

Adult Friend Finder is networking website used to “facilitate discreet adult relationships between individuals and groups who seek to find similar minded adults for sexual encounters.” The Friend Finder website describes itself as the “World’s Largest Sex & Swinger Community.”

In October 2016, the Adult Friend Finder system was hacked and two decades worth of information from around 339 million accounts was compromised. The widespread data breach is reportedly the second largest in the 21^st century, surpassed only behind the massive Yahoo breach.

The Friend Finder data breach affected more than 339 million accounts, 71.9 percent of which belonged to Untied States users. About 15 million accounts belonged to users who had deleted their accounts and 70 million belonged to users of other x-rated websites which Friend Finder had sold to Penthouse Global Media.

Information compromised in the breach allegedly included email addresses, passwords, VIP member status, browser information, IP information, user purchases, and photographs.

Friend Finder allegedly failed to immediately warn their users that their information may have been breached and instead waited until the next month to inform their members.

Even when they finally warned their customers, the company allegedly only sent a notice to active Friend Finder users. This failed to account for inactive users and the millions of accounts that were deleted or belonged to other x-rated websites.

The 2016 data breach was allegedly not the first data breach Friend Finder had experienced. In 2015, 4 million accounts were compromised, exposing sensitive information such as sexual orientation and if a user was looking for extramarital affairs.

Gutierrez argues that Friend Finder should have known that its system security was weak based on the 2015 data breach, but did not take adequate measures to secure user information.

“This massive data breach could have been prevented had Defendant taken the necessary and reasonable precautions to protect its users’ information by using recognized industry standards to safeguard the information, not outdated encryption methods rejected by the industry years prior,” Gutierrez claims in his Friend Finder class action lawsuit.

Gutierrez seeks to represent a Class of all consumers whose information was accessed, compromised, or stolen as a result of the October 2016 data breach. He also seeks to represent a Class of the same consumers in California who are protected under additional state privacy laws.

The Friend Finder class action lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, restitution, disgorgement, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

Gutierrez is represented by Julian Hammond, Polina Brandler, and Ari Cherniak of HammondLaw PC; and Laura L. Ho of Goldstein Borgen Dardarian & Ho.

The Adult Friend Finder Website Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Gutierrez v. FriendFinder Networks Inc., Case No. 5:18-cv-05918, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.