Photo of billboard selected by Noel Biderman from court documents
The suit also alleges that the former Chief Executive Officer ordered his employees via internal company emails to create “angels” or fake profiles to engage with men on the site.
BIRMINGHAM, ALA (PRWEB) November 13, 2015
In a lawsuit filed by Heninger Garrison Davis, Noel Biderman, former CEO of Ashley Madison and its parent company, Avid Life Media, has been named as a defendant in a class action lawsuit filed California (5:15-cv-02295, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California).
As indicated in court documents, Ashley Madison, a website advertising extramarital affairs, was hacked in July 2015, spilling the personal information and private desires of its purported 38 million site users. As a result, the names, credit card information, sexual preferences and fantasies, email addresses, and other personal and financial information of millions of men and women were revealed to the public. The lawsuit alleges that the actions of the Biderman and the other defendants led many members of Ashley Madison reportedly suffering from extortion, blackmail and public humiliation.
Among the alleged released data are internal emails from Avid Life Media, the site’s parent company, revealing information about Ashley Madison. According to court documents, the released internal emails show that Noel Biderman, when serving as CEO, allegedly ordered his employees via internal company emails to create “angels” or fake profiles to entice and engage men on the site.
Male users of AshleyMadison.com were allegedly charged a fee for each message or email sent on the website, whether they were interacting with these “angels” or the relatively small number of actual female users of the site. The “angel” profiles were “designed merely to generate revenue” and accounted for almost half of the website’s revenue. This is a main basis of the fraud claim against Biderman, the website, and its parent company, according to the suit.
According to court documents, one of the alleged reasons Biderman is named as a defendant is because he “personally and as chief executive for the other Defendants, authorized, directed, and participated in all of these marketing and sales activities, and he was the primary participant in them.”
According to a 2012 interview referenced in court documents, Biderman was often featured in television, radio, billboard and internet advertisements as the website’s spokesperson and was personally involved with setting up billboards in Los Angeles to entice new customers. The new suit was filed in California federal court as a result.
About Heninger Garrison Davis
Heninger Garrison Davis is headquartered in Birmingham with offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. and focuses on Business Litigation, Class Actions and Mass Torts, Intellectual Property and Personal Injury. Please visit http://www.hgdlawfirm.com to learn more about the firm.