Ashley Madison offers £300,000 reward amid reports of member suicides

[garbon]

I don't really think a person should be expecting the internet to maintain one's privacy for anything like hook ups.

"The internet" is rather ambiguous, and I agree that it is not very wise to expect privacy at the current state of the art. However one should be able to expect personal privacy. It is an extremely important personal right.

I don't see why you should expect personal privacy when you are posting content to someone else's servers. Maybe if one paid for the privilege, sure.

Perhaps one should not expect privacy regarding information freely given away, but that is significantly different than "anything like hookups".

Perhaps I should have specified hook up sites? From my experience, those generally don't require you to divulge much if any personal info unless, yes, one wants to go ahead and register. And then, of course, yes, I don't think one should expect that information to get out - as I said.

[Malthus]

Some bits from one of my faves, Dan Savage.

I tend to disagree with Dan - the problem is not the sex outside the marriage, the problem is the lying about it. Lying about significant matters tends to be corrosive to a loving relationship. Simply saying "relationships aren't depositions" is just glib. Sure, people lie to each other all the time - about inconsequential stuff. I don't think it is right to lie about things that are important, and from what I've seen, it rarely ends well.

[viper37]

Who are you to be judge and jury? There are plenty of reasons why someone might want to step out on one's spouse that are not reprehensible. Painting them all with a broad brush seems, as I said, rather callous.

That's where we will likely disagree (but hey, I am always open to enlightenment, and am always glad to be shown to be incorrect).  I cannot think of one plausible reason.

My point is that it does not matter one bit - even if they are all the most heinous of callous betraying fucking assholes...they still have the right to privacy, if in fact any such right exists for anyone.

totally agree. it's none of our business what other people do.

[alfred russel]

My point is that it does not matter one bit - even if they are all the most heinous of callous betraying fucking assholes...they still have the right to privacy, if in fact any such right exists for anyone.

They gave a private 3rd party information, and that information was stolen and made public.

That is no more a betrayal of their "right to privacy" than if a guy told a friend in confidence he was having an affair, and the friend went and shared the news broadly.

This is more akin to leaving something really valuable in a car parked in an extremely sketchy neighborhood and having it stolen. It sucks and is a crime, but is an easily foreseeable outcome. If major respected businesses can't keep their data secure, why on earth would you trust an entity like Ashley Madison with a motto of "Life is short, have an affair"? (and yes, that would go for apps like tinder and grindr too)

[Razgovory]

And I was always told information wanted to be free.

[Eddie Teach]

They gave a private 3rd party information, and that information was stolen and made public.

That is no more a betrayal of their "right to privacy" than if a guy told a friend in confidence he was having an affair, and the friend went and shared the news broadly.

More like the person eavesdropping behind the door blabs to everyone. I think most would agree that that person has invaded your privacy.

[MadImmortalMan]

The internet:



Only they use social media, police databases and watch lists now instead of just curtain-peeping.

[Razgovory]

Who are you to be judge and jury? There are plenty of reasons why someone might want to step out on one's spouse that are not reprehensible. Painting them all with a broad brush seems, as I said, rather callous.

That's where we will likely disagree (but hey, I am always open to enlightenment, and am always glad to be shown to be incorrect).  I cannot think of one plausible reason.

My point is that it does not matter one bit - even if they are all the most heinous of callous betraying fucking assholes...they still have the right to privacy, if in fact any such right exists for anyone.

I was under the impression that the "right to privacy" was a right that existed in relation to the state like the right to speech.  It would seem the issue here is theft, rather then invasion of privacy.

[Admiral Yi]

I was under the impression that the "right to privacy" was a right that existed in relation to the state like the right to speech.  It would seem the issue here is theft, rather then invasion of privacy.

Yup.  That's the way I see it.  Except that the right to privacy vis a vis the state is pretty limited too.  AFAIK the only privacy that has been formalized is that of a woman with respect to her womb.

[grumbler]

Yup.  That's the way I see it.  Except that the right to privacy vis a vis the state is pretty limited too.  AFAIK the only privacy that has been formalized is that of a woman with respect to her womb.

You should look up a case called Roe v Wade.  The judgment contained all kinds of references to formal rights to privacy (including attorney-client, doctor-patient, priest-person confessing... on and on.  Roe v Wade was actually decided on the basis of a right to privacy.

[alfred russel]

They gave a private 3rd party information, and that information was stolen and made public.

That is no more a betrayal of their "right to privacy" than if a guy told a friend in confidence he was having an affair, and the friend went and shared the news broadly.

More like the person eavesdropping behind the door blabs to everyone. I think most would agree that that person has invaded your privacy.

A guy who eavesdrops and shares secrets is an asshole, I agree. Not sure I would start talking about "foundational rights" though.

[Berkut]

They gave a private 3rd party information, and that information was stolen and made public.

That is no more a betrayal of their "right to privacy" than if a guy told a friend in confidence he was having an affair, and the friend went and shared the news broadly.

More like the person eavesdropping behind the door blabs to everyone. I think most would agree that that person has invaded your privacy.

A guy who eavesdrops and shares secrets is an asshole, I agree. Not sure I would start talking about "foundational rights" though.

My point is that this is not something that people should have even one bit of "Yeah, but..." about. Obviously it is a crime, what I am talking about is how people respond to it - there is a lot of "Gee, of course privacy rights...but HAHAHA THE ADULTERERS GOT CAUGHT!!!!" which makes me rather doubt that they give much of a shit about actual privacy rights to begin with, since they clearly don't understand what it means.

[Martinus]

Who are you to be judge and jury? There are plenty of reasons why someone might want to step out on one's spouse that are not reprehensible. Painting them all with a broad brush seems, as I said, rather callous.

That's where we will likely disagree (but hey, I am always open to enlightenment, and am always glad to be shown to be incorrect).  I cannot think of one plausible reason.

Come on, there are surely lots of plausible reasons:

-person has been told "we're not sleeping together anymore, and only staying together for the children.  But I don't care what you do in your free time"
-person is in an abusive relationship, but is very poor, and is looking for a new partner in order to get out
-person's partner is very sick, perhaps even in a coma, with little to no chance of recovery

Maybe you think those decisions are wrong, but they're certainly not reprehensible.

Yup, pretty much. There is also something called an open relationship.

[Martinus]

They gave a private 3rd party information, and that information was stolen and made public.

That is no more a betrayal of their "right to privacy" than if a guy told a friend in confidence he was having an affair, and the friend went and shared the news broadly.

More like the person eavesdropping behind the door blabs to everyone. I think most would agree that that person has invaded your privacy.

A guy who eavesdrops and shares secrets is an asshole, I agree. Not sure I would start talking about "foundational rights" though.

My point is that this is not something that people should have even one bit of "Yeah, but..." about. Obviously it is a crime, what I am talking about is how people respond to it - there is a lot of "Gee, of course privacy rights...but HAHAHA THE ADULTERERS GOT CAUGHT!!!!" which makes me rather doubt that they give much of a shit about actual privacy rights to begin with, since they clearly don't understand what it means.

Yeah, I am on board with you on this fully.

[Martinus]

Some bits from one of my faves, Dan Savage.

I tend to disagree with Dan - the problem is not the sex outside the marriage, the problem is the lying about it. Lying about significant matters tends to be corrosive to a loving relationship. Simply saying "relationships aren't depositions" is just glib. Sure, people lie to each other all the time - about inconsequential stuff. I don't think it is right to lie about things that are important, and from what I've seen, it rarely ends well.

I think his musings on a recent case of a mid-level executive who was caught "cheating" were much better - essentially, we do not know the reasons or the background, nor we have a right to ask or find it out - this is the content of his right to privacy. BB already gave a number of reasons; the guy could also be in an open relationship, he could have agreed with his wife to hook up with other people (but in the Ashley Madison case, may not want the spouse to know all the details - and neither the spouse may want to know them), etc.

I agree with what Berkut said and ultimately I think this cuts to a deeper issue - we are all a society of horrible busy-bodies. We want and need to know what our neighbours are doing, what they are up to and whether they conform to our standards - and sex and sexual life style are the areas where we are the worst offenders about it. We should learn to leave people alone - but I think in this culture, including the media culture, it is a pipe dream - and focus on our own lives instead (where, I suspect we subconsciously find enough stuff to worry about and be afraid of, that we rather look elsewhere - to our "shadow" we project on other people).