Ashley Madison Review: What It Is Today, and What It Was

01Who runs Ashley Madison

Ashley Madison launched in 2002 and was owned by Avid Life Media, a Toronto company. In July 2016, a year after the breach, the company renamed itself ruby and brought in a new CEO, Rob Segal. Today the site’s terms name two operators: Ruby Life Inc. in Toronto for members in Canada, and Ruby Life International Limited in Limassol, Cyprus, for members everywhere else, which includes the US. The iPhone app is published by Ruby Life Inc.

That matters for two reasons. First, if you ever need to make a privacy request or dispute a charge, those are the entities you’re dealing with. Second, the company you’re trusting with your data today is the same corporate line that was breached in 2015, under a new name and new management. Some people find that reassuring, since few companies have been forced to tighten up as publicly. Others won’t want to take the chance. Both views are reasonable.

02The 2015 breach and the 2016 FTC settlement

On July 12, 2015, according to the FTC, intruders breached Ashley Madison’s network. A group calling itself The Impact Team went public a week later and demanded the site be shut down. In August 2015, profile, account security and billing information was published online. The FTC put the number of affected users at more than 36 million.

The FTC’s complaint went beyond the hack. It alleged the company had no written information security policy and no reasonable access controls, and that intruders got into its network several times between November 2014 and June 2015 without being detected. It also alleged that, until August 2014, the site used fake “engager profiles” of women to convert men into paying members, and that it misrepresented messages from those profiles as coming from real women. Finally, it alleged that users who paid $19 for a “Full Delete” had their information kept anyway.

In December 2016, the operators settled with the FTC, 13 states and the District of Columbia. The order included an $8.75 million judgment, partially suspended, and payments totaling $1.6 million split between the FTC and the states, plus a comprehensive data security program with third-party assessments. In July 2017, the company agreed to pay $11.2 million to settle US class-action suits covering about 37 million users.

The leak kept causing harm. In early 2020, the email security firm Vade (now part of Hornetsecurity) found extortion emails sent to former users, threatening to tell family and friends unless a Bitcoin ransom was paid. Old data doesn’t expire. That’s the clearest argument for using a separate email and no identifying photos on any site of this kind.

The fake profiles the FTC described date from before August 2014. That doesn’t prove the site is clean today, and it doesn’t prove it isn’t. It’s a reason to watch for scripted messages.

03How Ashley Madison works today: credits and subscriptions

You can create a free member profile, which gives you some features. The rest requires buying credits, a subscription package, or both. The terms are explicit that this varies by jurisdiction: in some places you spend credits to start conversations or send Priority Mail, and you may need a positive credit balance just to see your message history. In others, those features come with a subscription instead. The purchase page shows what applies where you live.

Credits are the part to watch. They make it hard to know what a month will cost, because spending depends on how many conversations you start. The terms also say the number of credits a feature costs can change without notice, and purchases are generally final and non-refundable. On the plus side, credits don’t auto-renew unless you opt in to automatic top-up.

Subscriptions do renew automatically. To stop that, log in on the website, not the app, open Settings, then Purchases, scroll to Active Subscriptions and deactivate the one you don’t want renewed. You can also email customer support. If you bought through Apple or Google, cancel through that store instead.

04Discretion features

Ashley Madison’s App Store listing lists the privacy tools it offers now. The ones that do real work are below. Note what the listing also says at the bottom: all photos in it are of models, used for illustration.

• Discreet billing: the listing says charges appear as “AMDA,” not Ashley Madison, unless your bank or card company changes the descriptor.
• Photo privacy: private photo masking, plus Private Key requests that let you choose who sees which photos.
• Stealth Mode (iOS only): lets you customize how notifications look, so the app doesn’t announce itself on your lock screen.
• Profile verification: verified members can prioritize talking to other verified members.
• Report and block tools for suspicious or unwanted profiles.

05Leaving: deactivate vs. delete

The terms give you two options, both from your account settings on the website. Deactivating removes your profile from search, but your message history stays, and people you talked to can still see those messages for up to 90 days. Your data isn’t deleted, which is the point: you can come back.

Deleting removes your profile, and personal information is then deleted on the company’s retention schedule, except what it must keep for accounting or legal reasons, such as handling chargebacks. The terms say some usage history may be kept for up to six months, and that you can file a data erasure request under the privacy policy to speed things up. Any unused credits expire immediately when you delete, without refund.

Two more details. Accounts inactive for 12 months are deleted automatically and lose any unused credits, unless there’s an active membership. And if you’re leaving because of a scare, delete rather than deactivate. Given the history, it’s worth also sending the erasure request.

06Watch-outs before you pay

None of these is a dealbreaker on its own. Together, they’re why we rank Ashley Madison second, not first.

• Credits can add up quickly, and the cost of each feature can change.
• Subscriptions auto-renew; set a reminder before the renewal date.
• The 2015 breach data is still used in extortion attempts. Never reuse an email or photo from that era.
• Treat any member who asks for money, gift cards or crypto as a scammer, as the FTC advises.
• Purchases are generally final; a lack of replies from other members doesn’t entitle you to a refund, per the terms.
• Cancel and delete on the website; some settings aren’t available in the app.

07Verdict: who Ashley Madison suits

Ashley Madison suits people who want the biggest, most recognizable name and don’t mind a credits model. Its current privacy features are real, the AMDA billing name is documented, and the deletion process is spelled out in the terms. It also carries one of the best-known breach histories on the internet, and an FTC record on fake profiles that predates its current owners’ rebrand.

If discretion is your first criterion, Victoria Milan is our #1: lump-sum memberships instead of credits, a billing name that isn’t the site’s, photo blur and mask tools, and a panic button. If you’re weighing the two directly, our head-to-head comparison goes point by point.

Ashley Madison is a legitimate, heavily scrutinized option. Use a fresh email, keep your face private, watch your credit spend, and delete on the website when you’re done.