Ashley Madison Disclosures Are Good Business for Lawyers
Adultery is Great for Law Firms' Business
Divorce lawyers are getting more inquiries as a result of disclosures by hackers of the website that encourages adultery called Ashley Madison.com.
Hackers outraged by the website published the names and addresses of more than 30 million Ashley Madison.com customers, according to a report by The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net).
The District of Columbia ranked second in the United States for the number of residents who paid to seek adulterous sex through the website. Virginia was eighth and Maryland was 10th.
The hackers’ online disclosures also are likely to lead to job terminations for employees who accessed Ashley Madison.com on job sites that forbid using computers for anything other than work. Thousands of them come from government computers, according to a preliminary report on Ashley Madison.com customers.
They include 6,788 from the Army’s us.army.mil Internet addresses, 1,665 from the Navy’s navy.mil and 809 the Marines’ usmc.mil addresses.
CBS Local reported the following breakdown for Washington-area government entities:
104 from the Department of Veterans Affairs
22 from the District of Columbia government
22 from the Montgomery County government (plus four from the City of Rockville)
11 from the Department of Justice
11 from the Baltimore City government
8 from the Fairfax County government
5 from the FBI
Divorce lawyers say disclosures from the Ashley Madison.com website create strong evidence of adultery that could hurt spouses in child custody proceedings. The adulterous spouses also risk unfavorable judgments during divorces.
Meanwhile, two Canadian law firms filed a $578 million class action lawsuit against the companies that operate Ashley Madison, saying the website neglected to protect its customers’ privacy. Another class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Missouri by an unnamed woman seeking more than $5 million for damage to her privacy and reputation.
Ashley Madison.com’s motto is Life is Short. Have an Affair.
