Doing the Data Breach Lawsuit Facts An infidelity website, Madison Ashley and it
ID: 420100 • Letter: D
Question
Doing the Data Breach Lawsuit
Facts
An infidelity website, Madison Ashley and its parent company, have been sued in federal court by a man who claims that the companies failed to adequately protect clients’ personal and financial information from theft, saying he suffered emotional distress.
The lawsuit accuses Madison Ashley (MA) and parent company of negligence and invasion of privacy, as well as causing emotional distress. The lawsuit follows a breach of the Madison Ashley website by a group called the Impact Team, which downloaded “highly sensitive personal, financial, and identifying information of the website’s 37 million users.
The lawsuit follows a breach of the MA website by a group called the Impact Team which had threatened to publish the “stolen personal information” if the MA website was not shut down. This information included millions of email addresses for U.S. Government officials, UK civil servants and high-level executives at European and North American corporations.
At Trial
The Plaintiff argues that the data breach could have been avoided if the company had taken “necessary and reasonable precautions to protect its users’ information”. MA knew of several technical issues that could had led to a data breach but did nothing. The defense argues that their damages must be proven and, as there is no indication of credit card fraud or illegal use of the information, there is no basis for the case. Additionally, their website contains this sentence “We cannot ensure the security or privacy of information you provide through the Internet.”
Questions
Do individuals who subscribe to and visit this site have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Why or why not?
Are there facts that would support a tort action and, if so, what tort(s)?
Are there any other defendants besides MA? If so, why sue just MA?
Explanation / Answer
Individuals who visited to the website have to have the privacy and security concern of their personal information. The privacy policies are always defined by the company’s end. The user of website should read the information before entering into that particular website. It is the liability of the company as well as the user to provide correct information and need to read all the terms and conditions respectively.
Yes, the individuals who subscribe to and visit this website have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It is so because the customer’s satisfaction and security is more important in any online business. If the individuals visited the website, it is the liability of the company to make the process error free or data breaches free.
Yes, there are facts that would support a tort action. In the passage the information related to breach of the MA website by a group called the Impact Team which had threatened to publish the “stolen personal information” if the MA website was not shut down. This fact shows that individual may worry about the personal information. The company also write on the website that they cannot ensure the security or privacy of information which individual provide through the Internet.
This cause the emotional distress among the individual. Hence it comes under the Intentional Tort. The defendant causes the emotional distress when they write on the website.
Yes there are other defendants besides MA that cause the data breach. The other defended is Impact Team. The MA is directly involved in the process and the individual is connected with the MA.
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