Santa Clara, CA: An $11.2 million settlement has been reached in the data breach multi-district litigation (MDL) pending against the dating site Ashley Madison, formerly known as Avid Dating Life Inc., and its parent company Ruby Life Inc. There may be millions of plaintiffs seeking compensation from the settlement, as the 2015 data breach affected some 37 million users.
The MDL joins multiple suits filed against the dating website, which catered to married people. Ruby has stated that since the data leak it has enhanced its measures to protect client data.
According to the allegations made after the Ashley Madison data breach, Avid not only failed to secure customers’ confidential information, but also advertised a "full delete removal" service that in fact didn't erdicate user account information from the website's database. Further, the complaints claimed that Avid used artificial intelligence to fool men into believing they were interacting with women when they were in fact chatting with "bots."
According to the terms of the proposed settlement, funds will be available to reimburse customers who paid for “full delete” services, reimbursements for credits on the website they may have pre-purchased and any losses caused by the data breach of up to $2,000. Class members may receive a maximum of $3,500 each, according to settlement documents.
The proposed program to notify potential class members will ads in People magazine, Sports Illustrated and more than 11 million targeted digital banner ads.
The proposed settlement requires court approval.
The case is In Re: Ashley Madison Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, case number 4:15-md-02669 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
