11 ms·

It seems the revelation there are no women on AM is far worse business-wise than the security breach (Maybe not legally). How can you go on as a business if you

• RexRollman 11y ago
  Maybe dating/relationship sites should be required to disclose numbers to prevent fraud.
  • TallGuyShort 11y ago
    That gets tough without giving a third-party direct access to everything for auditing. You can lie about numbers just as easily as you can imply they're not an issue.
    • uptown 11y ago
      "That gets tough without giving a third-party direct access to everything for auditing." That's kind of the entire idea behind an auditor.
      • Crito 11y ago
        Giving auditors complete access to people's personal profiles? That doesn't phase you at all?
        • reagency 11y ago
          There ar e ways to audit... Timestamps of account creations, IP block where signups and messages come from....
          • halviti 11y ago
            Anyone competent who wanted to boost their numbers could just pay someone under the table to buy a bunch of vps's or vpn connections and fake all of this. You're just creating hoops, but you're not stopping anyone.
        • harryh 11y ago
          The way auditors have complete access to people's financial records?
          • TallGuyShort 11y ago
            People don't want authorities having access to data on their sexual promiscuity the same way the government keeps tax records.
        • fweespeech 11y ago
          Given those personal profiles are effectively public to "millions" of users....eh?
        • uptown 11y ago
          Do you seriously think there were controls in-place to prevent Ashley Madison developers from doing just-that? Auditors work with privileged information in order to provide assurances to third-parties that the audited entity is operating in a legitimate way. Sometimes they receive a sampling of data to spot-check things, while other times their review necessitates more-broad access. Both of these approaches necessitate some level of access to what would otherwise be considered confidential information, but audits are performed with the understanding that the firm conducting the audit has as-much to lose by compromising the data privacy of a client as the client. It makes no sense for a reputable auditor to expose the information they're analyzing because it would destroy their firm's reputation, and put them out of business.
          • Crito 11y ago
            > Do you seriously think there were controls in-place to prevent Ashley Madison developers from doing just-that? No, but there should have been. Access to personal customer data should be strictly controlled, with access being granted only to those who need it for their work, and only for as long as they need it. I would never expect them to do that, but they should do that.
      • TallGuyShort 11y ago
        Yeah the whole discussion around the privacy implications of this hack is that people DO NOT WANT THAT.
• deleted 11y ago
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  • deleted 11y ago
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    • vanderZwan 11y ago
      It shows acting upon intent. Are you saying attempted murder shouldn't be a crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempt
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        • irl_zebra 11y ago
          To be fair, using your analogy, signing up for an account on AM is probably much closer on the attempted murder scale to "sitting in the potential victim's bushes at night with a knife" than it is to "googling 'how do I kill someone.'"
        • notahacker 11y ago
          I wonder how many people are using the "I wanted to research before I lectured my congregation on the sin of adultery" or "I just wanted to know if you were on it, darling" defence.
  • irl_zebra 11y ago
    Factual impossibility [1] doesn't do much in the court of law, let alone to help a jilted lover feel less betrayed, one would think. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibility_defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibility_defense
  • orbitur 11y ago
    Exonerates? They're guilty just by making an account/spending money in the first place.
• drpgq 11y ago
  I'm amazed at how few women there are on AM. I knew there wouldn't be many, but the numbers seem to be ridiculously low.
  • Killswitch 11y ago
    Let me tell you this, I worked in the adult industry and I absolutely despised working with dating sites. Ashley Madison, Adult Friend Finder, etc because of this issue. They employed hundreds of staff who's main job was to pretend to be interested women messaging non-paying members enticing them to upgrade their free memberships to be able to respond back or what-have-you-not and then once the customer was paying, they stopped and moved onto the next. That's shady business no matter what you think. I personally have zero empathy for Ashley Madison and for what's happening to them. Edit:// Adult Friend Finder actually pays an absurdly higher payout for referrals whom happen to be women, because they don't get many women signing up.
    • wmeredith 11y ago
      How is this not considered fraud?
      • logfromblammo 11y ago
        Proving it would require the cooperation of witnesses and aggrieved parties who would be publicly embarrassed if they were to provide testimony. So it's usually safer to cheat someone if you can do so in a manner that would also humiliate them if their role in the con was exposed. They discount what they lost by the price of their own dignity and reputation.
        • reagency 11y ago
          That is true, but the world is big and there are people who (1) wouldn't be ashamed, (2) could do it as an intentional investigation. And the crooks can't detect those people in advance.
      • 11y ago
• brianbreslin 11y ago
  I wonder if the FTC will fine them. Or a large scale class action suit will take them down.
  • adventured 11y ago
    Lawsuits would have happened a while ago, except the amount of money users will tend to have lost, won't make for a good enough trade on the personal cost of public embarrassment.
    • icebraining 11y ago
      A lawsuit was just filed this week: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34032760 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34032760
    • bradleyjg 11y ago
      A class action lawsuit only needs one named plaintiff.
• BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  > It seems the revelation there are no women on AM is far worse business-wise than the security breach (Maybe not legally). Is it really true though? The estimates were, what, 1,400 available women in total? It's anecdotal but there are thousands of accounts online of people saying they were able to hook up with women and a few who even ended up marrying the woman they hooked it up. Seems a great deal of those would either have to be made up or the estimate people came up with is wildly wrong. I'm not entirely convinced yet.
  • seren 11y ago
    If you are ready to create millions of fake account, you are probably ok with writing false testimonies/reviews. Most likely, some affairs have actually happened, but the "success stories" you've read were probably submarines[0] by AM. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
    • DiabloD3 11y ago
      I think if pg had a Youtube channel where he talks about issues he's written over the years (say, in the format of PBS Idea Channel, just not as caffeinated; and don't get me wrong, PBS Idea Channel, in my opinion, is one of the best web shows on Youtube, but that pace might be me inappropriate for pg.tv), I would probably subscribe.
      • pc86 11y ago
        Something tells me he has more important things going on.
        • matthewowen 11y ago
          like working on arc?
          • jsprogrammer 11y ago
            Extracting value from his resources?
• ryandvm 11y ago
  If your business model is fundamentally predicated on dishonesty, I think all bets are off regarding the value system that people will use to evaluate it.
  • untog 11y ago
    ...no? That's a pithy statement but I can't see how it is true. If it is widely known that Ashley Madison has no women on it, men won't use it.
    • pc86 11y ago
      Which would have the odd side effect of increasing the ratio of women on the site.
• Yhippa 11y ago
  Knowing that and the fact that they seemed so disinterested in security it seems like this was just one big honeypot for cheaters.
• temponly 11y ago
  "the revelation that there are no women on AM". In my experience, this was not true. I was on AM about six years ago, over a two month period. I'm in a Poly relationship and at the time was searching for a new partner. I chatted with a couple dozen women. Don't think they were software robots. Met with six or so. Definitely not robots. Still with one, who I love and adore. The women I met were all quite good looking and quite sexual. Was introduced to the nude selfie - an eye opener. Perhaps the fakery came after my time, or perhaps the assertion that there were no women on AM is just not true.
• Shish2k 11y ago
  I wonder where all the women are? I'm fairly sure that the human race as a whole is 50/50 split; but dating sites are 99% men, the tech industry is 90% men, when I take public transport it's 75% men, pubs are 80% men, construction workers I pass on the walk to work are 100% men, etc etc. I can't remember the last time I was in a room which was mostly women; the last time I even got to 50/50 was high school... It's really hard to avoid bias when the bubble that I live in is so skewed :/
  • niccaluim 11y ago
    Here's a real sample of most of the messages women get on dating sites: hi [that's the whole message] u r so beautiful [again, the whole message] hey babe do u want a real man i will treat yuou lik a lady This represents the vast majority of messages men send on dating sites. And the volume of messages women get is insane. It is a firehose of garbage. Why would anyone volunteer to be on the receiving end of that?
    • robwormald 11y ago
      I moderated on OKCupid for years, and this is so, so true. In fact, it usually went more like: "Heyyy guurllll lemme holla at you" "Thanks, but no thanks" "Fine bitch, you ugly anyway" That, or dick pics. So many dick pics.
      • surge 11y ago
        Right, I know personally of more success stories from Everquest and WoW (and maybe one eHarmony story) or other random online communities than actual dating sites.
      • mikeash 11y ago
        The first site that can reliably filter this stuff out before it even gets to the target will probably make enough money to form a small black hole. As a moderator, were you just responding to reports from users, or were you preemptively checking into messages, or something else?
• unoti 11y ago
  > How can you go on as a business if your business model has been exposed as totally fake ? They should take a few pages from the TSA playbook!
• jordsmi 11y ago
  Other than the few big main sites, this is how alot of the dating sites are. Especially all of the hook up ones you see on porn sites ads. They are all fake women accounts just trying to get money out of the guys.
• linkydinkandyou 11y ago
  I've been happily married for 25 years, and haven't dated for longer than that, so what do I do. But I think a site that actually verified profile photos and height/weight would go a long way to getting a better balance of both men and women. You'd go to a kiosk local to you to get a "standard" photo taken, where everyone gets the same mugshot from front and side, and full body, and a verified height and weight. And then, to log in, you need biometric proof that you're the same person in the photo, so you can hire a non-obese or fit person to have the picture taken. I think this may appeal to both men and women.
• quizzas 11y ago
  A combination of the following reasons: 1. Consumption Mismatch: men have an endless thirst for new sexual trists whereas women can be sexually fulfilled by a single partner every few years. Because of this consumption mismatch, a site like AM clearly seeks to address the consumption habits of men, but does not address the pairing habits of women. 2. Average looking women and above have no shortage of interested men showering attention - why join AM when there are easier ways? The path of least resistance. 3. Women do not solve their "mid life crisis" issues with an affair, but instead turn to self-help, yoga, group therapy, etc. Men predictably buy sports cars, climb mountains, sky dive and have affairs. So let's say the above generalizations are 80/20 accurate at best. It still significantly skews the gender ratio on a site that's soooo clearly focused on addressing the unique mating habits of men (which any sociologist and psychologist will confirm are different than women) rather than women. Tinder, although not perfectly aligned with women, is still better than AM for women. The best platforms for women are ones that allow for more deeply layered and nuanced interactions that may lead to relationships/sex rather than built specifically for an easy hookup (Tinder, AM). As others have observed, women would rather hookup through meetings on WoW, EverQuest, etc. than meat markets like OKCupd, Match, Tinder, etc.
• nkurz 11y ago
  It seems the revelation there are no women on AM is far worse business-wise than the security breach (Maybe not legally). I was hoping the opposite. Lying to your users may well be a viable strategy for this sort of business, as the users aren't likely to band together than share information. But failing to inform potential investors that your business is based on fake accounts is both legally actionable and highly risky. How can you go on as a business if your business model has been exposed as totally fake? My disappointed guess would be that this is not as large a handicap as you might expect. Each struggling business's hope is that they can "pivot" to a different model before they fall apart. Sometimes this is a polite fiction, but sometimes they manage to do it.
• prawn 11y ago
  The brilliance of AM is that who, realising it's even more of a scam than they suspected, is going to complain to friends, colleagues, partners or authorities that they were trying to have an affair and got ripped off? Someone should take it to the next level, create a similar site but give people a cut of the revenue for leading men on past the paywall. Outsource the staff, essentially.