[4] The company gained notoriety in 2015 when it was subject to a data breach and the personal information of millions of users was released to the public.

[7] However, Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) stated that it would not allow Ashley Madison to operate there as "it promotes adultery and disregards family values".

[9] On July 15, 2015, hackers stole all of its customer data—including emails, names, home addresses, sexual fantasies, and credit card information—and threatened to post the data online if Ashley Madison and fellow Avid Life Media site Established Men were not permanently closed.

[11] On August 28, 2015, Noel Biderman agreed to step down as chief executive officer of Avid Life Media Inc.[12] A statement released by the firm said his departure was "in the best interest of the company".

[13] In July 2016, parent company Avid Life Media re-branded itself to Ruby Corp. and appointed Rob Segal as its new CEO.

[11][19] The "full delete" option claims to remove user profiles, all messages sent and received, site usage history, personally identifiable information, and photos.

[citation needed] Trish McDermott, a consultant who helped found Match.com, accused Ashley Madison of being a "business built on the back of broken hearts, ruined marriages, and damaged families".

[26] According to Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, who has analyzed the 2015 leaked data,[27] Ashley Madison had over 70,000 bots sending fake female messages to male users.

In 2015, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed the case without costs, a result with which Avi Weisman, vice-president and general counsel for Avid Life Media, said the company was "very pleased".

[30] In July 2016, CEO Rob Segal and newly appointed President James Millership told Reuters that the company had phased out bots by late 2015.

One such technique has been the creation of fake criticism websites filled with ads for Ashley Madison and anonymous testimony that the site is legitimate.

[2] Former CEO Noel Biderman was a relentless self-promoter and appeared frequently on talk shows to defend the website and the morality of infidelity.

[39] Ashley Madison has designed their ads for shock value, including the (unauthorized) use of celebrities and politicians with alleged sex scandals, and the resultant media coverage generates considerable exposure to their website.

[40][41][42] Ashley Madison has often been accused of deliberately courting controversy to generate free publicity for its website with its proposed sponsorship.

[48] With five of six committee members voting against it, the commissioner stated "When it's a core fundamental value around cheating or lying, we're not going to let those kinds of ads go on.

[53] Another release was made on August 20, but a 13 GB file – which allegedly contained the emails of Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman – was corrupted.

[58][59] On August 24, the Toronto Police Department spoke of "two unconfirmed reports of suicides" associated with the leak of customer profiles along with extortion attempts, offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the hackers.

[60] At least one suicide previously linked to Ashley Madison has since been reported as being due to "stress entirely related to issues at work that had no connection to the data leak".