John Doe Files Purported Class Action Against Ashley Madison

John Doe is pursuing class action status in federal district court in Los Angeles against Ashley Madison.com and its parent company.  This case arises from the massive data breach suffered by the website catering to people interested in having extramarital affairs.  Last week, a Canadian class action was filed seeking $578 million in damages.  Doe is seeking unspecified damages in relation to the eight allegations including negligent infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and breach of contract.

The attack was allegedly perpetrated by the “Impact Team,” which disclosed the names and emails of public figures, government officials, and high-level corporate executives.  So far two people have committed suicide as a result of the breach and countless others have no doubt suffered public shame and private anguish at the hands of the merciless technicians.

According to the complaint, the attack was a result of the Ashley Madison’s “inadequate data security,” which failed to encrypt users’ personal information. Additionally, one of the motives behind the Impact Team’s attack was the $19 “cancellation” fee associated with the expunging of the user’s account information that was still available on Ashley Madison’s servers, despite the numerous users paying for their records to be deleted.

Toronto based Avid Life Media is the parent company of Ashley Madison and four other websites that strive to set themselves apart from the conventional dating websites.  The company presented a 500 million Canadian Dollar reward to apprehend the hackers in the Impact Team responsible for the attack.

Due to the risqué nature of the subject matter disclosed there will be more stories written about this data breach than others in years’ past.  However, what I am most interested in is whether this case will be settled or dismissed, and if so, what stage of the litigation this will occur.