Ashley Madison Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Gender Discrimination Against Male Users

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The operator of AshleyMadison.com faces a proposed class action lawsuit over its alleged practice of charging male users more than female users for the website’s matchmaking services. 

The 32-page case was filed by a heterosexual California man who alleges defendants Ruby Corp and Ruby Life, Inc. have discriminated against all male users, regardless of sexual orientation, on the basis of gender, in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. 

“Ashley Madison’s disparate treatment of men and women has caused discontent, animosity, harm, resentment, or envy among the sexes, constituted intentional arbitrary, unreasonable, and/or invidious discrimination, and contravened California’s historical effort and public policy to eradicate sex discrimination,” the lawsuit alleges. “Defendant willfully and maliciously injured Plaintiff and class members by intentionally discriminating against them based on their sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity.” 

According to the complaint, Ashley Madison’s business model is based on “credits” rather than monthly subscriptions. Although a consumer can create an account for free, the case says, they cannot communicate with others unless they buy and spend credits. The lawsuit states that for a conversation between two Ashley Madison members, “one of the members, always the man in male/female conversations, must first purchase and then spend credits to communicate with the woman.” 

Moreover, Ashley Madison prohibits all men—heterosexual, bisexual and transgender—from initiating contact with any woman without first buying credits and then using those credits, the filing says. Even if a female user wishes to initiate contact with a male user, the lawsuit continues, the latter is required to use credits to open the female user’s message, and then use more credits if he wishes to respond and continue the conversation. 

“Thus, regardless of whether a man initiates contact with a woman or a woman initiates contact with a man, the man has to pay, but the woman does not,” the complaint says.

The filing further argues that Ashley Madison goes so far as to “brazenly flaunt[] its discrimination of its subscribers and prospective subscribers based on their sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity” by openly advertising in the FAQ on its website that women seeking men are given “full membership” for free.

The case looks to represent all Ashley Madison subscribers to whom the service “denied equal treatment,” at any time such subscriber was in California, based on the person’s sex, sexual orientation and/or gender identity between May 19, 2019 and the date of trial.

The suit also looks to cover all persons who, while in California, visited Ashley Madison's app or website with the intent to use the company's services and encountered Ashley Madison's "sex-based, sexual orientation-based, and gender identity-based discriminatory terms and conditions" that allegedly denied them full and equal access to the company's services from May 19, 2019 and continuing through the date of trial.

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