Adultery app Ashley Madison says its rebranding to discreet dating

The infamous dating platform Ashley Madison just announced a massive global rebrand, and the sheer audacity of its new PR spin is worth talking about.

Ashley Madison is officially dropping the “affairs” label and repositioning itself as a privacy-first destination for "discreet dating.” But if you’ve kept up with the company’s track record, you have a right to feel a little skeptical.

Ashley Madison has a history involving a major data breach and fake profiles.

In 2015, a catastrophic data breach exposed the information of millions of users and outed high-profile members, including Josh Duggar from 19 Kids and Counting (yikes). The incident was also linked to at least two suicides at the time.

To help smooth things over, its parent company, Avid Life Media, changed its name to ruby Corp. in 2016, and the site decided to (temporarily) drop its tagline: "Life is Short. Have an Affair." And just a week before its new TV commercials hit the market, the company was hit with a probe and lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission over fake profiles posing as real women. (Ashley Madison settled months later.)

The new rebrand pivots away from infidelity and leans into 'ethical discretion.'

Fast forward to today. Ashley Madison has yet another new tagline: "Where Desire Meets Discretion."

According to the brand's PR team, the site is now focusing on "ethical discretion" for singles, separated individuals, and the ethical non-monogamous community. Paul Keable, the Chief Strategy Officer, tells us that this shift was influenced by last year's sign-ups: Apparently, 57 percent of new members identified as single.

“Our pivot to discretion is recognizing and enabling daters to take control of their profiles and helping to create better connections,” Keable told Mashable in an email. “We will now market Ashley Madison as a dating platform for ethical discretion; whether they are single, separated, divorced, or non-monogamous.”

Dr. Tammy Nelson, a sex and relationship therapist partnering with the brand, agrees that dating app fatigue and oversharing have driven users toward platforms that prioritize anonymity and data protection. “Discretion and privacy have become the goal of dating,” says Dr. Nelson. “In a recent Ashley Madison member survey, 61 percent of respondents said the reason they chose Ashley Madison in the pursuit of connections was that they wanted a high level of discretion.”

The platform uses impressive, albeit shady, tech to keep users hidden.

To their credit, Ashley Madison’s feature list is pretty impressive if you’re trying to stay off the grid (but, again, it was originally built to help you cheat):

• Selective identity: Users are encouraged to use a pseudonym, and you can blur or mask your photos. The site asks you to sign up with a nickname rather than your legal name. There’s also no social media linking allowed. According to Keable, the app strictly prohibits social media handles or phone numbers in profiles to prevent cross-platform identification.

• Private keys: Members can create a hidden photo album and grant (or revoke) access via a "Private Key" at any time.

• Stealth Mode (iOS only): Apple users can customize the app’s icon and notification appearance on their phones (shady, if you ask me).

• Screenshot blockers: The platform has built-in screenshot blockers, so other members can’t take screenshots of anything in the app. If they attempt to do so, they’ll just get a black screen capture. Although it doesn’t send an alarm or anything to the person whose image was captured, Keable says that users who are reported for sharing screenshots externally could face a permanent ban.

“The most significant differentiator is our community itself,” says Keable. “Mainstream apps are built on ‘social discovery,’ using your contacts and ‘friends of friends’ to help you find people you know,” he adds. “Ashley Madison operates on the opposite principle.”

Ironically, the actual cheaters on Reddit aren't happy.

Users over on the r/adultery subreddit have already noticed the shift in real-time. The platform has quietly dropped explicit labels like "Attached seeking Attached" and replaced them with standard "Men seeking women" and a generalized "non-monogamy" tag.

Ashley Madison is trying really, really hard to convince us that the site’s fundamental purpose has evolved beyond facilitating infidelity. I was fully prepared to call BS on this entire pivot, but ironically enough, the actual cheaters aren't thrilled about the rebrand. Over on Reddit, users are actively complaining that the influx of single people is ruining the site's original purpose, making it harder to find other married people looking to stray. One user wrote, "This has really ruined the site for me. I'm only interested in connecting with women who are having an affair... I wish I could get a refund on my credits."

So, you can call it "ethical discretion," or you can call it a PR stunt. But if the adulterers are fleeing because the site is too full of single people looking for privacy? Well, maybe the rebrand is actually working.