back to article The most tragic thing about the Ashley Madison hack? It was really 1% actual women

When the Ashley Madison databases were splashed all over the internet by hackers, it emerged that about 31 million accounts on the Tinder-for-affairs website were created by men. And about 5 million by women. Not great odds if you're a straight fella looking to cheat on your spouse. It turns out the odds were even worse: very …

Page:

  1. mark 177
    Pint

    How Many Men Actually used AM?

    For completeness, could we have the stats on how many male profiles were similarly never used?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

      About 2/3 were used so around 20 million I believe.

      1. Old Handle

        Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

        How about what percent of male accounts were paid?

    2. JetSetJim

      Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

      I wouldn't be surprised if these stats mirror those on Match.com and other such sites

      1. Jim 59

        Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

        Having used Internet dating sites, I have always suspected that the number of men dwarfes the number of women. I have no proof, but the user experience suggests it.

        Having far more men than women is the norm IMO, which is why they don't function anything like portrayed in TV adverts etc. It does not work well for either sex. Somebody should start a site that admits only the same number of men as women, and use that as a selling point. Big bucks await.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

          Women receive more messages than they send. So it seems to me the best to stand a chance is to message the new members quick.

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?

        I wouldn't be surprised if these stats mirror those on Match.com and other such sites

        I will note, purely anecdotally, that I personally know several women who say they've used Match, and a few who've mentioned using other sites such as OK Cupid.1 I suspect, but have no sound evidence to support, that some sites - particularly Match, which has a massive PR and advertising campaign in the US2 - are somewhat more appealing to women and thus have somewhat less lopsided ratios.

        If it's possible to get hold of reliable data, no doubt someone's done a study. But that's a big "if".

        1Am I the only one who finds it nearly impossible not to refer to that site as "OK, Stupid"? Maybe it's just me.

        2Certainly no other site matches their TV advertising spend in these parts. I've seen a few adds for Chemistry.com, which were based around a clever campaign explaining they were the site for people rejected by Match.com. Tempting!

  2. Pliny the Whiner

    No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

    Wow, a sex Website selling a fantasy rather than a fact. Has such a thing ever happened before?

    1. Roq D. Kasba

      Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

      It does show how absolutely bullshit the claim that millions of married men were having relationships though AM is though. The site was never a risk to public morality any more than ElReg readers dating, despite pretending to be.

      If you discount the percentage of profiles set up by admins, men pretending to be women, and worried spouses, that 1% looks a lot closer to 0% active 'women'

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

        "It does show how absolutely bullshit the claim that millions of married men were having relationships though AM is though."

        I think you distort the facts to suit your point. I don't believe any one claimed that "millions of married men were having relationships". Merely, that milions of men were unfaithful, willingly subscribing to an idea that "life's too short, have an affair", seeking (seldom finding) that shag on the side.

        Unless, of course, the opposite is the case, i.e. those milions, with exception of a few bad apples, were busybodies doing research in the name of advancing the science of extra-marital relationships, or they were unknowingly entered into the database by the miscreants who, in the random act of good nature, also paid for their accounts. Yeah, it must have been like that.

        1. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

          Or those 12,000 women were really, really busy.

        2. DavCrav

          Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

          "Merely, that milions of men were unfaithful, willingly subscribing to an idea that "life's too short, have an affair", seeking (seldom finding) that shag on the side."

          Of course, this is using the less traditional definition of unfaithful, which is "does not succeed in having an affair".

          More seriously, since there were essentially no women on AM, does that mean that use of AM cannot be used in court as grounds for divorce, since it's way below the threshold for even suspicion of having an affair, never mind proof?

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

            does that mean that use of AM cannot be used in court as grounds for divorce, since it's way below the threshold for even suspicion of having an affair, never mind proof?

            Obviously this would depend on jurisdiction. No-fault divorce is now available throughout the US and in many other countries, so you don't need a reason - but in some jurisdictions (not sure about whether this is still true of any US states) that's only if both parties agree to dissolution.

            Prior to no-fault divorce, I expect that demonstrating a concrete attempt to commit adultery could have been argued as equivalent to successfully committing it. But who knows? Maybe one of our friendly legal bloggers will look into the matter.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

        "...any more than ElReg readers dating..."

        Ha, that'd never happen!!!!!!

        <anon because I'm actually married, not keen on ruining my nerdtastic image...>

    2. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

      @Pliny the Whiner

      It's just entertainment...

      If there are only 1% women, then I have to believe AM is some sort of perverted online game and not really an infidelity website. It's a real game of chance - chance of getting in touch with a real woman...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015

      Adult friend finder?

      Or any of the other whose members only conveniently reply close the subscription renewal date.

  3. P. Lee

    So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

    They were selling a product they could never deliver.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

      Take the blue pill.

      1. DwarfPants

        Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

        I don't think you'd want to take the blue pill, if there were that few women around. You could end up all dressed up and no place to go.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

      I don't think they needed the hackers to point that out. Life simply doesn't work that way. A dismal thought it may be, but life is no fantasy land. A whole bunch of guys have just had a tough lesson in that.

    3. Peter Simpson 1
      Thumb Up

      Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

      They were selling a dream...

      1. kiwimuso
        Joke

        Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

        @Peter Simpson 1

        Seems it turned out to be more like a wet dream!!!

    4. ffeog

      Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam

      The appearance of a two-sided market in order to bilk the one side that actually comes to market (which is then technically, not a market.) Not much sympathy for the clients of AM, but its a pretty common dodgy business practice for intermediary market 'makers', e.g. certain freelance job sites, don't really have any appreciable buy-side clients, but want to charge job applicants for 'access' to 'them' ?!

  4. JohnMurray

    What's new.

    All women have to do to click is walk into a bar wearing very little.

    Why waste time enlisting onto a website when you can get what you want elsewhere....

    Most sex-sites are of a similar ratio....except that sometimes it is not evident from a quick glance that many of the women are just men dressed-to-impress.

    Many of the women are, apparently, asking for "donations" to pay for the travel costs........

    Whatever....................

    1. Fungus Bob

      They don't even have to do that, all they need to do is walk down the sidewalk naked while carrying a six pack of beer. They *will* get laid.

  5. 45RPM Silver badge

    So nearly all the names in the Ashley Madison data dump belonged to men who were faithful in deed, even if not in thought. It's evidence not that they were having an affair but that they are too tragic to be able to pick up a partner in a bar (or insert name of real meatspace venue here) and so have to resort to doing it online.

    Eeenteresting.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...about 12,000 women were real active users on the adultery website versus 20 million men."

    Must have kept them pretty busy then.

  7. Salamander

    Paying money to cheat on your wife

    So men signed up and paid money to cheat on their wives. In the pre-internet days, a man would have just popped down to the local knocking shop.

    Welcome to progress and technology making peoples lives better.

    1. lotus49

      Re: Paying money to cheat on your wife

      Men signed up and paid money in the hope of cheating on their wives. At least at a knocking shop men actually got what they paid for. Ashley Madison appears to be no more than a fraud perpetrated against men who were too sad and unattractive even to have an a successful relationship with their wives much less another woman.

  8. Forget It
    Coffee/keyboard

    Follow question

    of the low percentage how many were MtF crossdressing?

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "Women can use the site for free"

    And they still don't. What a failure.

    I wonder how representative this is of all the dating sites ?

    In any case, I've never liked dating sites before and, with numbers like these, my dislike is reinforced.

    1. Turtle

      Re: "Women can use the site for free"

      "What a failure."

      That depends on your definitions.

      Perhaps it was a success in that it enlivened the lives of some men with an apparently-plausible fantasy. This really needs to be taken into account, I am sorry to have to say.

      One might well think that for at least some of the men using the site, this was about as close as they're going to get to a real woman and they were certainly under the impression that there were many desirable women on the site - because that's what the internet is; and that's what human imagination does.

      (Example: note that for all the stories on this site, the pictures which accompanied the stories were all of young, well-maintained people - as opposed, for example and contrast, to grossly overweight people with questionable hygiene. Which do you think would be closer to the underlying reality?)

      Or one might think that the website was a success - for the people who ran it - in that it made quite a bit of money: even the paid deletions earned them a good $4 million (rounding off to 200,000 deletions at $20 per.). It would appear that the website was a goldmine, but that might change depending on the legal fallout.

      (In spite of the T&C's stating that some of the profiles were "created for amusement" I think that the fact that nearly all of the supposed women were non-existent goes far far beyond what such a disclaimer should allow them to get away with. Hopefully they will be made to disgorge, at the very least. This is a separate question from their culpability for letting the user data end up plastered all over the internet - such cases need to be punishable by imprisonment.)

      Depending on one's point of view and definitions, the site might or might not have been a "success" but it certainly was a fraud. Even for me, having a very low opinion of the internet, the reality was astonishing.

      As someone once put it: No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Women can use the site for free"

      "And they still don't. What a failure."

      Perhaps if they PAID them to join, and then... oh, wait, dangerous ground!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rule 29

    In the internet all girls are men and all kids are undercover FBI agents.

    1. Jedit Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Rule 29

      I thought it was "The internet, where men are real men, women are also real men and children are the police"?

    2. Ben Bonsall

      Re: Rule 29

      On the internet, everyone is a cat until proven to be a bot. Who likes cats.

      1. ukgnome

        Re: Rule 29

        Meow

  11. Jediben

    If women can use the site for free, wouldn't it follow that a free 'woman' would be created first so that paying users could 'test the waters' to see who/what is actually available on the service? It would be very telling if we knew how many 'female' accounts were men just looking to see if the site was worth using.

    1. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      No, because usually you pay only to contact users or see slightly better pictures. I don't know if that's the case with AM, but it's how it works elsewhere.

  12. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    Well f*ck me! (or not, it would appear)

    So we have a service whereby you can add some woman's email address to a big list of adulterers and it doesn't cost you anything, but obviously *she* will get the "welcome" email and it will go straight in her spam folder and there's no way for the original perpetrator to ever use the account so it lies idle.

    I am not in the least bit surprised that this happened several million times. Nor am I surprised that AM made no attempt to remove these accounts from their membership statistics.

    I am, however, puzzled that anyone ever thought this was a suitable website to give their credit card details to.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    and they say the sex industry is bad for women

    ... when in fact the sex industry as a whole is excellent at parting men with cash for satisfying (or not) their particular fantasy.

    On a separate note, i find it particularly self-demeaning for men to pay tokens to 'chat hosts'... like throwing fish at a seal in sea world... "here's a few dollars, now jump up and down and eat a banana"..

    Fortunately for society, most men just shrug and say "Meh" when they realise they have spanked (pun intended) too much money on basically nothing a trip to the "wank bank"* couldn't have solved.

    * the bank of memories savoured by any man for that time when they need to relieve themselves using only their memories and imagination.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: and they say the sex industry is bad for women

      Feminist detected.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: and they say the sex industry is bad for women

      i find it particularly self-demeaning for men to pay tokens to 'chat hosts'... like throwing fish at a seal in sea world... "here's a few dollars, now jump up and down and eat a banana"

      I doubt that was what they asked them to do with a banana.

  14. Archivist

    Why the percentage shock?

    You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate as many women as possible, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around.

    Civilisation has glossed over those drives, but they they are still in our heads and bodies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why the percentage shock?

      You might want to do some reading on the theories surrounding the purpose of the female orgasm. You may be shocked at what you may find; I know I was!

      At least one theory suggested that the big Female O was about attracting additional males *immediately* during procreation to ensure that competition was fierce amongst them. Such conflict ensured good genetic stock.

      Going anon because my wife reads el reg. and I don't want her getting any ideas. :D

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: Why the percentage shock?

      "while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around." -- Archivist

      Speaking as an erstwhile geneticist, that's not strictly true. There's a considerable advantage to women to play it both ways, and significant evidence that they do. The optimum mating strategy for a women is to become impregnated by an extremely attractive (and likely promiscuous) male and then have her family provided for by some dependable saddo with material resources who is unlikely to cheat.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why the percentage shock?

        The optimum mating strategy for a women is to become impregnated by an extremely attractive (and likely promiscuous) male and then have her family provided for by some dependable saddo with material resources who is unlikely to cheat.

        And that's why "Trust, but Verify" is so important. ;)

        (in lots of things really)

    3. Martin
      FAIL

      Re: Why the percentage shock?

      ...biological facts...

      If you want the REAL biological facts, you should read Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation by Olivia Judson. It completely debunks the "men want to impregnate everyone, women are looking for one man" myth. It's also extremely funny.

    4. Potemkine Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Why the percentage shock?

      You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate as many women as possible, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around.

      So time travel does indeed exist! This post coming directly from the 19th century is the proof!

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Why the percentage shock?

        This post coming directly from the 19th century is the proof!

        Alas, sociobology is alive and well. It's a convenient refuge for a particular type of sophomoric thinker who wants to ascribe simple, foundational causes to human behavior and sweep both complexity and ethical responsibility under the rug. Now that scientific racism is a harder sell,1 sociobiology is a great way to put a pseudoscientific gloss on your own bad behavior (or the bad behavior you aspire to).

        1Though by no means dead. It has yet to regain the limelight it briefly enjoyed with Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, much less its dominance of the days of naive Darwinist imperialism, but there's no shortage of tiresome small-minded bullies still promoting it.

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon