The CEO of Avid Life Media – parent company to extramarital affair website Ashley Madison – Noel Biderman, has stepped down after a tumultuous few weeks.
The statement announcing Biderman’s departure said it had been a “mutual agreement” between Biderman and the company.
A new CEO has not been appointed and the company will operate under senior management.
“This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees. We are steadfast in our commitment to our customer base,” the statement reads.
“We are actively adjusting to the attack on our business and members’ privacy by criminals. We will continue to provide access to our unique platforms for our worldwide members.
“We are actively cooperating with international law enforcement in an effort to bring those responsible for the theft of proprietary member and business information to justice.”
Avid Life Media’s Ashley Madison site was threatened by hackers in late July, saying if the company didn’t remove Ashley Madison and its sister site Established Men from the internet the hackers, calling themselves The Impact Team, would release user details on the internet.
Ashley Madison remained online, and on August 19 the hackers apparently made good on their threat and dumped nearly 10GB of data on the web, with personal user details.
At the time, Avid Life Media condemned the hack, deeming it an act of “criminality”.
Since the dump, headlines continue to write themselves about the scandal, with Avid Life Media offering a $500k reward (Canadian dollars) for anyone with information about the hackers.
The hack probably spells the end of the brand, some PR pros told B&T last week, as the team at Ashley Madison could have handled it much better than they did.
