Toronto-area lawyers file class action over Ashley Madison breach

Jenny Yuen of Toronto Sun reports on a potential class action lawsuit filed in Toronto.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Eliot Shore, a disabled widower in Ottawa, who after 30 years of marriage lost his wife to breast cancer. He joined Ashley Madison for a short time seeking companionship, but never met anyone online.

The data breach includes users’ personal names, e-mails, home addresses and profile information for public viewing.

Charney said since the first information dump on Tuesday, more than 50 people — one-third of which are women — approached the lawyers — and more should come forward, he said.

Read more on Toronto Sun.

About the author: Dissent

6 comments to “Toronto-area lawyers file class action over Ashley Madison breach”

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  1. IA Eng - August 21, 2015

    Another person looking to get rich quick. HA! No damages, no payout.
    Sorry about their significant other, but that has nothing to do with the fact they opted in for the “service”.

    Its a boneheaded move to think your going to get cash for this, even moreso, having people come out and ADMITTING/Confirming that they were on the website under their own free will. That will continue to drag their names in the mud, and keep the stories in the front news.

    I don’t know what they are thinking, but having the women come forward and admitting they were on the site is like a bright yellow calling card saying “Yeah, I am available and looking for some action”. They’d get so many emails from stalkers, and the unstable ones moreso than anyone thats truly legit. Once they are willing to go that low, they are opening a huge can of something that doesn’t smell too good.

    Having anyone lawyer up to try to win cash is going to spend more money on the lawyer than they can afford. Using the “sad sack” emotional empathy approach is absolutely ludicrous and the Judge ought to throw them out (which he will do anyway). Really? Your a widow, may have had an insurance policy on the spouse and your looking on a website that deals in the darker side of relationships?

    If a person is willing to do this type of signing up on a web site like this, their desire to seek other individuals in the future will probably come out sooner or later. I’d simply take the list of supposed clients from this website and if I were to converse with them from via a different website or means, and saw their name on the AM list, I’d simply sever all communications. If your looking for trouble in more than one way, this has the potential to brew it. A supposed female profile and communicate with you and send lovely photos and then say, Sure, pay me for my plane ticket in advance and I will come see you….says the oversized man in the chair waiting for you to finance his next house payment.

    The odds are astronomically against them in this case. People will try anything to become the next “I wanna be rich quick” scheme.

    • Dissent - August 21, 2015

      In other parts of the world, such lawsuits may prevail, cf: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/11815766/Ashley-Madison-Britains-first-divorce-proceedings-launched.html

      Luke Scanlon, technology lawyer at Pinsent Masons, said: “The interesting thing about this incident is that recent court decisions in the UK have been leaning towards the view that a claim can be brought when no financial loss occurs but where a person experiences distress as a result of an data breach.

      “In the case of Ashley Madison, which is reported has 1.2million subscribers in the UK alone, if each were to try to claim for £1000 in compensation Ashley Madison could see itself incurring costs of up to £1.2 billion. Even if claims for distress in this case are modest, the sheer volume of data breached and individuals affected in this attack could have a critical impact on the company.

      • Anonymous - September 1, 2015

        This is going to be interesting on many jurisdiction fronts (prov/state/country).

        Unfortunately it could take a year just to find out if some class actions will get the go ahead or canned. Will see how all these diff jurisdictions react to the same thing (or however a lawyer will frame it).

        I should have kept tabs on the lawsuits. Think there is 2 Canada, maybe 2 or 3 in the States. No clue about elsewhere.

        • Dissent - September 1, 2015

          There are already more than 8 in the U.S. 🙂

          • Anonymous - September 1, 2015

            oh i’m behind.
            Guess that makes you volunteered for keeping tabs of it all and tabulating results of it all! 🙂

  2. Dong Reaollano - September 1, 2015

    Hackers dumped more stolen Ashley Madison data Thursday, just as Toronto-area lawyers filed their notice of action in Superior Court for a class action lawsuit against the adultery hook-up site.

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