Ashley Madison Reaches $11.2M Data Breach Class Action Settlement

Ashley Madison’s parent company, Ruby Life, has agreed to pay $11.2 million to settle claims arising from a data breach that revealed personal information about those using the adultery dating website.

Several class actions were consolidated into multidistrict litigation after the data breach. According to the MDL, users were offered a “full delete removal option,” but their information was not fully removed from the website’s database.

Users also alleged that they were duped into thinking they were interacting with real women on the website, when the website actually used artificial intelligence.

According to the plaintiffs, Ashley Madison is a website known for arranging dates for married men and women who want to enter into an extramarital affair. The plaintiffs alleged that the data breach exposed Class Members to irreparable harm, including public humiliation and divorce, along with the risk of fraud. The class action plaintiffs brought federal racketeering claims, claims for violations of the Federal Stored Communications Act, negligence, breach of contract and various claims under state law.

Ruby Life does not admit any wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement, but says it will reimburse users who paid for the “full delete” service, as well as for losses due to the data breach. Class Members can claim a maximum of $3,500.

According to the class action settlement, notices will be sent using 11 million targeted digital banner ads along with ads in People magazine and Sports Illustrated. Additionally, a settlement website will be set up, but will be discrete, says the motion for preliminary approval of the settlement.

“The URL of the Settlement Website shall be agreed upon by Class Counsel and Defendants, but in any event shall be a nondescript URL that will not include any reference to Ashley Madison, Avid Life Media, Avid Dating Life, Ruby, Noel Biderman, or any other information identifying the URL as being related in any way to the substance of this litigation or purpose of ashleymadison.com,” said the motion.

In a statement issued by Ashley Madison’s parent company, Ruby, the company says that just because a person’s information was included in the data breach does not mean that the person used Ashley Madison’s services.

“Account credentials were not verified for accuracy during this timeframe and accounts may have been created using other individuals’ information,” said Ruby.  “Therefore, Ruby wishes to clarify that merely because a person’s name or other information appears to have been released in the data breach does not mean that person actually was a member of Ashley Madison.”

Both the class action plaintiffs and Ruby have asked the court to preliminarily approve the settlement agreement.

Top Class Actions will post updates to this class action settlement as they become available. For the latest updates, keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter. You can also receive notifications when this article is updated by using your free Top Class Actions account and clicking the “Follow Article” button at the top of the post.

The plaintiffs in the various Ashley Madison lawsuits are represented by interim co-­lead counsel John J. Driscoll, Christopher J. Quinn and Gregory G. Pals of The Driscoll Law Firm and W. Lewis Garrison Jr., Christopher B. Hood, Taylor C. Bartlett and James F. McDonough III of Heninger Garrison Davis LLC. The plaintiffs’ interim liaison counsel includes Douglas P. Dowd, William T. Dowd and Alex R. Lamaghi of Dowd & Dowd PC. The plaintiffs’ interim executive committee includes John Arthur Eaves Jr. of John Arthur Eaves, Attorneys at Law, Gary F. Lynch and Jamisen A. Etzel of Carlson Lynch Sweet & Kilpela LLP, Thomas A. Zimmerman Jr. of Zimmerman Law Offices PC, Julian A. Hammond, Ari Cherniak and Polina Pecherskaya Hammondlaw PC and Katrina Carroll and Kyle Alan Shamberg of Lite DePalma Greenberg.

The Ashley Madison Data Breach MDL is In re: Ashley Madison Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, Case No. 4:15­-md­-02669, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.