The data disclosures in 2015 revealed that this "permanent deletion" feature did not permanently delete anything, and all data was recoverable.

Trish Mc Dermott, 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".

Unlike or e Harmony, Ashley Madison's business model is based on credits rather than monthly subscriptions.

For a conversation between two members, one of the members—almost always the man—must pay five credits to initiate the conversation.

Compounding the problem is that "more men than women use the service, with the disparity increasing as they advance in age", and "Men seek sex, while women seek passion." A page on Ashley Madison, entitled "Is Ashley Madison a scam? " addressed some of these issues in an attempt to win over prospective customers and teach them best practices for using the site.

Ashley Madison had over 70,000 bots sending fake female messages to male users.

Also in 2009, NBC refused an ad submitted by Ashley Madison for the network's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII.

By July 22, the first set of customer names were released by hackers, with all of the user data released on August 18, 2015.

Ashley Madison employs guerrilla marketing techniques to advertise its site.

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. Ashley Madison Scams.com" was registered to Ashley Madison owner Avid Life.

Any follow-up messages between the two members are free after the communication has been initiated.

Ashley Madison also has a real-time chat feature where credits buy a certain time allotment.