It's a fact: 2020 ain't the year for fidelity. COVID has fractured countless marriages, and many promising couples are about to break. To keep their sanity in check, some folks are awakening to the pleasure of fantasy.
Like you. You're thirsty for something new, but aren't exactly looking for a divorce. You want to release your burden - and Ashley Madison's slogan says it all: Life is short. Have an affair.
If you look at Ashley Madison reviews, many folks sing the praises to high heaven. But is everything as it seems? Here's what you need to know.
In the English-speaking world, no sites around compete with the name Ashley Madison. This site exists for one objective: connecting cheaters with other people who are looking for the same exact thing. In the past, people who practiced infidelity kept all parties in the dark (not just their spouses). But Ashley Madison knows that cheaters are looking for a match who understands them, individuals who have the ability to surprise them and to enliven this path of theirs that grew too dull.
That's why they pair cheaters with one another. This honesty is fresh, freeing people to get real about their desires. Anything from flirting email exchanges to passionate affairs are on the table - and it all starts with your email address. With Ashley Madison, everyone is on the same page, and your secret lover empathizes with your struggle over lying to your children, husbands, and families.
With over 60 million registered users, it's easy to find someone whose goals match your own. Give as little or as much information as you want through a virtual relationship and buzz with the excitement of vulnerable communication straight from the heart with a new beau. If your needs are more physical, meet someone new in person, and focus on whatever you want: opening up about issue after issue with your marriage, quelling the thousands of pandemic fears, having a rich conversation on the ways writers have glamourized suicides in stories over the years, or just having a little hanky panky. Whatever you're there for, one of the millions of users who input their email address is bound to be the perfect fit.
So maybe the tagline 'Life is short. Have an affair' is running in loops through your mind (all rights reserved). But signing up is a big deal. For many a marriage, uncovering an account made by your spouse would be enough to end things then and there. So before you put your time with your kids on the line, figure out exactly what it is you want. From an intimacy standpoint, it helps to understand your own boundaries. Do you want a full-on lover or just someone to commiserate with via flirty text?
Get clear, and when you do - you'll be ready to log in for the first time.
AshleyMadison. Ashly Madisin. Madison, Ashley. No matter how you Google it, this site will crown the searches, promising connection just around the corner. With only an email address, Ashley Madison promises you're on the way to something new.
Now's the perfect time. Since COVID-19, membership has increased. Chief Strategy Officer Paul Keable reported the number of sign-ups in 2019 was 15,500 daily. Now, in this crisis affecting countries from Canada to France to Portugal to Ireland, daily signups have jumped to 17,000.
Now more than ever, the odds are in your favor...to a point. When you send off that email address, you'll quickly realize the site is only free for women. Everyone can browse profiles for free, but they charge men per message. Business practices like these drum up interest for women who are tired of creeps, and want to limit their activity to men who are serious about an illicit connection. Dick pics aren't a way to get attention; they're a turnoff for women browsing the market.
But after you pay, messaging is easy as one, two, three. Exchange messages via the site for privacy, or do what a lot of folks do, and jump straight to emails and texts. With only a few cents per message, you can start chatting away.
As part of the same company that runs EstablishedMen.Com, Ashley Madison is the number one virtual location for having an affair - and experts from around the globe love to hate it. But is it a scam? AshleyMadison reviews are a mixed bag. Some folks swear by it, while others swear it stinks.
With over 60 million members, the company has undergone many changes in recent years in order to deliver a better experience. In the past, the site used bots to drive up the use of accounts and push poor saps to drain their bank statement by messaging the bots back. Once people caught on, the bots stopped. Now, to give customers a sense of the company's inner workings, they've shared documents from a third-party audit report proving that all accounts are real. In many an interview, Paul Keable pushes to be transparent about the flaws in the links of this network. But there's one problem that not even the most dedicated employee can erase from everyone's memory: the hacking of 2015.
No scandal stains this illustrious site like the 2015 hack. When the data breach hit, it marked the end of many people's home lives. Somewhere between 32 million and 37 million users' suddenly found their home addresses, credit card numbers, and inbox history compromised. The hackers called themselves The Impact Team, and they wanted one thing: for the site to shut down. In sex-shaming hacktivism, the hackers wanted to end infidelity once and for all. If the site didn't comply, they'd make the names of the user base public.
Not wanting to shut down, Ashley Madison resisted. And in August 2015, millions of users' sensitive material was sent out into the world. Security was gone, and all details were public knowledge, right down to customer records and past purchases. Tacking 'all rights reserved' on the end of things is a flimsy sidebar when the front door has been battered down and every password is up for grabs.
And that was when Ruby's parent company Avid Life Media came under fire. Known as the company that, according to CNN, makes raunchy ads from the domain site GoDaddy look tame, Avid Life Media was criticized for choosing to protect the identity of investors, but not their individual customers, throwing them to the wolves.
In 2020, the breaches have come back to haunt users. Now, hackers are using those old passwords to leak the same data (and more). People from the United Kingdom, India, USA, Australia, and other countries have been subject to this fraud, and all over the world folks are fearing their partners may see their private, cheating activities if the fee isn't paid on time. From photos to private messages, every bit of user data (from their profile to their most intimate private message content) is at stake.
In response to this, some are ignoring it and hoping for the best, while others are accepting the terms of the ransom and paying hackers for their silence in BitCoin. But still - for those who weren't part of the data breach, an analysis of their feelings shows that the thrill of drinks with someone new may be worth the potential risk. To keep their members safe, the company Ruby, Inc., who runs Ashley Madison, has a dedicated Chief Privacy Officer to prevent anything like that from happening again. As of July 2020, the current CPO Leah Stansbury has held the role for four months.
This is where things go down hill for anyone watching. Most paid dating site companies struggle with engaging women in the first place. IF you ask me, it's because all the advertising is made by men who seem to have never been in the room with two women at once in their life - and if they did, it was for a lawsuit.
The hack revealed the biggest flaw for straight men and bisexual women: out of the millions of users, as of 2015, there were only twelve thousand women who were active users on the site.
...you may just need to look elsewhere. If you're looking for a woman, press your luck on Tinder. But if you're after a man? Signing up will be the event of a lifetime.
Still, data breach and all, Ashley Madison is a website that has changed the basis on which an affair is built. You may not be able to search for images of this kind of love on Getty Images, but you don't need an example - you're the owner of your future. So what're you waiting for? Life is short. Have an affair.