The fallout from the Ashley Madison hack seems spectacularly dramatic. At least four suicides have been linked to the hack, and people such as Christian Theologian R.C. Sproul Jr., have resigned from positions of authority. Most ominous of all are the blackmail emails. A blackmailer who calls him/herself Barton has sent hundreds of emails to Ashley Madison users demanding Bitcoin, or else. Recent information suggests that the blackmailer profited between $6,400 and $15,000 over a four day period.
With all the panic and outrage in the aftermath of the Ashley Madison hack, one would assume that AshleyMadison.com would be scrambling. Quite the contrary; Ashley Madison, and their parent site Avid Media, seem virtually unfazed by the upheaval. Their response to the hack was to dethrone their CEO, Noel Biderman. The news page on their website claims that since the hack, they have signed hundreds of thousands of new users, including 87,000 women.
The whole thing seems eerily calm, as if Avid Media knows something we don’t. Probably because they do. Ashley Madison is no stand-alone dating site; in fact, it barely qualifies as a dating site at all. Ashley Madison is just one of twenty-three interconnected legal entities run by Avid Media.
Their websites are not only other dating sites, like Cougarlife and EstablishedMen; they also own the narcissistic photo sharing site Hot or Not, and at least one D.I.Y network. Avid Media has tendrils in all corners of the internet, all feeding into one another. Ashley Madison isn’t a dating site as much as it is a direct marketing network.
Avid Media does not make the majority of its money by preying on hapless marriages; it makes money by partnering with hundreds of dating sites, social networks, and individual affiliates to run traffic through its many storefronts. Certain dating websites have partnered with Ashley Madison to send members interested in extramarital affairs directly to Ashley Madison. The affiliate package for Ashley Madison alone is dazzling. Affiliates receive $200 for every new member, and up to 70% on any first purchase. With incentives like that, it’s no wonder the affiliate crowd is trumping the bad press. It is entirely possible that Ashley Madison is reporting its new members accurately.
Ashley Madison has become a household name virtually overnight. Avid Media’s business model protects Ashley Madison from being ruined by bad press. From a business perspective, the hack and subsequent news storm was great for revenue and brand recognition. What a lucky break!
Or, maybe not luck. Information suggests that the hack went unnoticed by the media for several days, until a news writer was informed of it by email. The reporter did not follow up on the story, because the links in the email he received went dead immediately after he interviewed Noel Biderman.
Coincidence? Maybe. After he failed to break the news, Daily Mail’s paid news source reported the story, seemingly out of the blue. This begs the question: Did Ashley Madison orchestrate the news storm? Did they simply take advantage of the hack to turn a profit… or was the whole thing an inside job?
