Does Ashleymadison.Com Encourage Adultery?
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Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures Auburn University http://harbert.auburn.edu Debate Does AshleyMadison.com Encourage Adultery? ISSUE: Should AshleyMadison.com have fewer business opportunities because the website offers its users opportunities to pursue extramarital affairs? Life is short, have an affair. That’s the slogan for AshleyMadison.com, a dating website designed specifically for people in committed relationships. With nearly 40 million users, AshleyMadison.com describes itself as “the most successful website for finding cheating partners.” Named for the two most-popular girls’ names when it launched in 2001, AshleyMadison.com is the star website of Avid Life Media, a company that owns six dating websites including cougarlife.com (matching older women with younger men) and establishedmen.com (featuring older and wealthier men). Avid Life’s CEO Noel Biderman started AshleyMadison.com because he recognized that many people who use dating websites and newspaper ads are not actually single (experts believe 10-30 percent of online daters are in committed relationships). How does AshelyMadison.com work? Users can join the site for free, and members are matched with local users. If members want to contact their matches, they must purchase credits in order to message or chat. Customers can then exchange contact information or meet others and engage in extramarital affairs if they choose. AshleyMadison.com even offers an “Affair Guarantee” that promises users will find someone to have an affair with within three months. The controversy surrounding AshleyMadison.com has both helped and hindered the company’s growth. Media attention has generated free publicity and spurred new memberships, but it has also opened the site to negative attention. Many people have criticized AshleyMadison.com, saying that it is morally wrong to promote infidelity and that the website has a negative impact on marriages, families, and society. Trish McDermott, who co-founded Match.com, accuses AshleyMadison.com of being “a business built on the back of broken hearts, ruined marriages and damaged families.” Other people believe that the site also encourages prostitution. While 92 percent of male users say they are married, only 60 percent of female users are married. Profiles for single women often hint that the women are looking for someone who can provide them with financial benefits. Because many people consider AshleyMadision.com to be unethical, Avid Life Media has been denied several business opportunities. The Toronto transit commission would not allow AshleyMadison.com to advertise on city streetcars. In 2009 and 2011, FOX television refused to air AshleyMadison.com advertisements during the Super Bowl because the commercials were too sexual. Additionally, in February 2010, the city of Phoenix rejected AshleyMadison.com’s $10 million offer to rename the Sky Harbor Airport to Ashley Madison International Airport, despite its own financial trouble. Avid Life Media has also struggled to get funding. Two deals intended to help the company to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange have fallen through, and most private investors don’t want to be associated with the site. This material was developed by Harper Baird, Cassondra Lopez, and Chandani Bhasin under the direction of O.C. Ferrell and Linda Ferrell. Updates provided by Jennifer Sawayda. It is intended for classroom discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of administrative, ethical, or legal decisions by management. Users of this material are prohibited from claiming this material as their own, emailing it to others, or placing it on the Internet. (2015) Biderman believes that AshleyMadison.com is being treated unfairly. He says, “[If] you eradicate Ashley Madison, you’re not going to eradicate infidelity.” Today, approximately one in five adults cheats on their significant other. Biderman claims that AshleyMadison.com does not encourage infidelity but instead creates a platform for discrete affairs. He says, “No website or 30-second ad is going to convince anyone to cheat. People cheat because their lives aren’t working for them.” The company sees the biggest spike in new memberships on the days after Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and New Year’s Day, probably because people feel underappreciated. AshleyMadison.com expanded rapidly and reported nearly 40 million members in 2015. However, despite what Biderman said, many still believed AshleyMadison.com encouraged adultery. In July 2015 a massive hacking incident threatened the very future of the site. Employees came to work only to find messages on their computers informing them that a hacking group called the Impact Team had hacked into AshleyMadison.com’s servers and stole client information. While they were not able to access full credit card numbers, the hackers did have access to names, email addresses, sexual fantasies, and credit card transactions. The hackers threatened to release the names on the Internet if Avid Life Media did not shut down its AshleyMadison.com and establishedmen.com websites. They gave AshleyMadison.com 30 days to comply with their demands. AshleyMadison.com did not shut down and instead worked with law enforcement to track down the hackers. When the 30 days were over, the hackers posted TIME’S UP on PasteBin and began releasing names. They ended up making three data dumps that included information from 32 million customers. The revelation resulted in blackmail, family conflicts, suicides, divorces, and a class-action lawsuit filed against Ashley Madison for not having better security protection measures. AshleyMadison.com claims that people are still joining its site, but the damage has already been done. Additionally, there are claims that AshleyMadison.com used automated emails from “fake” profiles to talk to men extensively, calling into question just how many real women were actually on the site. The fallout is likely to decrease AshleyMadison’s reputation, but other firms have bounced back from major ethics scandals. AshleyMadison.com’s success indicates that the website is fulfilling the needs of the market. However, just because AshleyMadison.com is legal, is it ethical? Should the website have the same business opportunities as other companies? There are two sides to every issue: 1. AshleyMadison.com should have the same business opportunities as any other company that meets the needs of a growing market. 2. AshleyMadison.com should be denied certain business opportunities because it encourages and promotes extramarital affairs. Sources: AshleyMadison.com website, AshleyMadison.com (accessed September 10, 2015). Jeremy Caplan, “Cheating 2.0: New Mobile Apps Make Adultery Easier,” Time, June 29, 2009, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1909602,00.html#ixzz1SsCqmheo (accessed September 10, 2015). Alex Cohen, “Web Site Makes Millions by Connecting Cheaters,” NPR, March 12, 2008, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88137694 (accessed September 10, 2015). Stephanie Embree, “Marriage affected by culture standards,” SMU Daily Campus, April 13, 2011, http://www.smudailycampus.com/news/marriage-affected-by-culture-standards (accessed September 10, 2015). Sheelah Kolhatkar, “Cheating, Incorporated,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February 10, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_08/b4216060281516.htm (accessed September 10, 2015). Nate Lord, “A Timeline of the Ashley Madison Hack,” Digital Guardian, Sept. 1, 2015, https://digitalguardian.com/blog/timeline-ashley- madison-hack (accessed Sept. 4, 2015). Annalee Newitz, “Ashley Madison Code Shows More Women, and More Bots,” Gizmodo, Aug. 31, 2015, http://gizmodo.com/ashley-madison- code-shows-more-women-and-more-bots-1727613924 (accessed Sept. 4, 2015). Greg Portell, “Ashley Madison—Teflon Brand or Burnt Toast?” The Huffington Post, Sept. 3, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-portell- /ashley-madison-teflon-bra_b_8077754.html (accessed Sept. 4, 2015). Danny Yadron, “Ashley Madison’s Stolen Data Is Posted,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 20, 2015, B3. Kim Zetter, “Answers to Your Burning questions on the Ashley Madison Hack,” Wired, Aug. 21, 2015, http://www.wired.com/2015/08/ashley- madison-hack-everything-you-need-to-know-your-questions-explained/ (accessed Sept. 4, 2015). Kim Zetter, “Hackers Finally Post Stolen Ashley Madison Data,” Wired, Aug. 18, 2015, http://www.wired.com/2015/08/happened-hackers- posted-stolen-ashley-madison-data/?mbid=social_twitter (accessed Sept. 4, 2015). .