copy writing / psychology technique. it is super effective to have those secure logo to gain more users. just google copy writing hacks for landing pages. some of them give you their numbers and just imagine how big 1% of a conversion rate is for a big site. it is really fascinating stuff.

I'm curious why so many are downvoting. Do you disagree that the business model is disgusting, or just think it's inappropriate to say so about a peer's startup?

I'm very curious to know what HNers think about this.

I happen to agree that the business model is awful, but it's also sort of off-topic. The way in which I am displeased with someone who chooses to cheat on their spouse is very different from the way I am displeased with a company who makes money off of getting large numbers of people to cheat on their spouses, and this hack victimizes individuals more than the company. It's also very different from the way I am displeased (or really, not displeased) with someone who chose once, in a moment of weakness, to attempt to cheat on their spouse, and thought better of it shortly thereafter, or even someone who did cheat on their spouse, regretted it, apologized, and sought forgiveness. We have no idea from the data how many of those people still have email addresses and credit card numbers on file.

I do wish there was a way to distinguish between "Your facts are wrong," "I disagree with your opinion," "You're off-topic," or "You might be right and on-topic but you're not constructive" when downvoting, especially since HN norms are that the first two are appropriate uses of the downvote button. (I don't think it's very likely to be the last one, in this case.)

Thank you for that answer, which helped me see some larger issues at play.

Edit: although I also disagree that discussions of ethics and morality are off-topic for HN.

To be clear, I think discussions of ethics and morality in company purposes are (or at least, ought to be) very much on topic for the site as a whole. I just think that discussing the morality of this particular business on this particular comment thread is likely to risk being off-topic, because it's too easy to read it as "Yeah, but they deserved it," and maybe the company did but the story is primarily about the users, not the company itself.

Here's a proposition that I think is on-topic that we can discuss: It is, IMO, clearly irresponsible and reprehensible to go around encouraging people to break their marriage vows and then not take world-class care of the database listing the people you so encouraged. If you can't find qualified people to take world-class security measures, maybe you shouldn't be running the site at all.

Possibly the worst bit is the "you need to pay us money to be removed from our database" aspect of the business model, which gives the whole thing a decidedly protection-racket-ish air. And then, apparently, they didn't remove you from the database even if you paid the protection money!

"It is, IMO, clearly irresponsible and reprehensible to go around encouraging people to break their marriage vows and then not take world-class care of the database"

It's reprehensible for any third party to go around encouraging people to break any sort of vows between any two people, and it's irresponsible for any online site with a large userbase to not take world-class care of their database. Why should the two propositions be connected?

To me, it's not more irresponsible because of the nature of the site, and it's not suddenly more reprehensible because they got hacked. In addition, I would say that leaking the database is more reprehensible than the site itself ever was.

The two propositions should be connected because how bad it is when your name shows up in some hacked company's database depends on what the hacked company is, and being outed as someone who tried to have an extramarital affair is more damaging than being outed as someone who (say) bought some shoes.

(Some people will feel that this is balanced out by the fact that these are Bad People, who deserve to have their badness exposed. If so, failing to protect the database might have been less irresponsible and reprehensible in AM's case. But it would be quite a coincidence for these things to balance perfectly. One way or the other, the service you're providing to your customers makes some difference to just how awful it is when you fail to keep their data private.)

> this hack victimizes individuals more than the company

Hm; do you really think there's a chance the company will survive this? It seems unlikely.

Do you think the impact on the individuals (not just the site users, but their partners and children too) carries less weight than the impact on a few sleazy execs, who will most likely have no trouble setting up another revenue stream?

Not under the same name, but they might just survive if they go for a (more subtle) rebrand.

Let's be real about what the business model actually is, though: scamming men who wish they were having more sex into paying a recurring fee, and then try to string them along to keep them paying, by having fake profiles of beautiful women 'wink at' or 'poke' them, chat, or whatever.

By now it has been documented that Ashley Madison customers are overwhelmingly male (duh...) and that they have fake women doing fake interactions (such as 'collect' messages the male users have to pay to read).

I don't find that business model disgusting, exactly, but it's pretty sad and sleazy and lame. (The facilitating affairs aspect of the business, if it were actually real, wouldn't offend me personally.)

HN seems to be tolerant of people's personal beliefs, until those begin to be used to judge other people.

Also, there's a bunch of assumptions being made about AM and its customers and the emails released by hackers.

From a business point of view, and like any company, they're matching a need with a service at a profit.

But everyone has their own preferences and boundaries. Society generally frowns upon affairs, but if your own morals allow you to create that sort of business, it's your choice.

> Society generally frowns upon affairs

Than why is everyone doing it?

Ok, I think people are misunderstanding what I've said. I'm not taking any sides here. What I'm saying is that everyone has their own moral codes which can differ from what's dictated by society (morals aren't the same as ethics). There are going to be people who cheat but that doesn't mean everyone does. Look at laws. People break them. But not everyone.

As for AM as a business, I mentioned that everyone has their own preferences and boundaries. Some people won't create anything involving gambling, adult, etc. but others are okay with it. The same can be said for what the AM founder created. We don't have to like what he's made. We don't have to agree with the business model.

That line of thinking is nice when you are teen. But then the real world comes and people usually find that real life is more nuanced and complicated.

Lets start with - sex acts your SO just won't do, but you like them. A lot.

You like them more than your marriage vow?