{"id":57793,"date":"2014-08-29T07:08:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T03:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=57793"},"modified":"2014-08-28T09:08:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T05:08:11","slug":"ashley-madison-sues-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/ashley-madison-sues-south-korea","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Madison Sues South Korea After Government Bans Dating Site"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right; margin: 11px 33px;\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3888\/15069210232_c723141f17_o.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"329\" height=\"185\" \/>Ashley Madison, the popular dating site for people who are already in relationships, is suing South Korea.<\/p>\n<p>The suit, filed in a Canadian Federal Court, comes after the site&mdash;which has described itself as &ldquo;the most recognized name in infidelity&rdquo;&mdash;was banned by Korean Authorities earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p><!-- pagebreak --><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The company accuses the South Korean government of engaging in &lsquo;uncompetitive acts&rsquo; by unfairly banning the website while allowing local businesses to operate similar ones,&rdquo; according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/business\/2014\/08\/28\/ashley_madison_sues_south_korea.html\" target=\"_blank\">Canadian Press report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to the suit, filed by the sites Toronto-based parent company, Avid Life Media, Korean authorities ordered internet service providers in the country to block the site on the grounds that it was illegal.<\/p>\n<p>The company challenged the ban unsuccessfully, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunnewsnetwork.ca\/sunnews\/canada\/archives\/2014\/08\/20140828-163234.html\" target=\"_blank\">QMI report<\/a>. While adultery is illegal in South Korea, Avid Life Media argues that its website isn&rsquo;t breaking any laws.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The website is for communication purposes only, and such communication is neither illegal in South Korea nor Canada,&rdquo; according to a quote from the statement of claim <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/business\/2014\/08\/28\/ashley_madison_sues_south_korea.html\" target=\"_blank\">included in the CP article<\/a>. &ldquo;No sexual interaction can take place on the plaintiff&rsquo;s website any more than it can by individuals using other websites that the defendants permit to operate freely in the Republic of Korea.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The company claims that the Korean ban will have an effect on its business in Canada, hurting its ability to win Asian-Canadian and Korean-Canadian clients.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Given the global reach of the Internet, a social networking service that meets with success among any particular group of people in one country has or will have a significant competitive advantage among people of that same group or related groups in other countries,&rdquo; it claims.<\/p>\n<p>Avid Life claims that Ashley Madison has over 20 million members and is available in over 25 countries. In 2013, it was named the 29th fastest-growing company in Canada by Profit Magazine, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techvibes.com\/blog\/canadas-fastest-growing-tech-companies-business-to-business-2013-07-02\" target=\"_blank\">ranked second<\/a> among consumer-facing tech companies on the Profit List. <\/p>\n<p>The site has seen success in the Asian market, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/health\/ashley-madison-scoring-big-in-japan-where-marital-form-counts-1.1756853\" target=\"_blank\">particularly in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ashley Madison is no stranger to lawsuits, in 2013 the site was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2013\/12\/27\/3839680\/jilted-husband-sues-online-infidelity.html\" target=\"_blank\">sued by a North Carolina<\/a> man whose wife left him for a man she met on the site. It was also sued by a former employee who claims she wrote over a thousand fake profiles for the site&#8217;s Portuguese-language version. Those profiles which were allegedly accompanied by photos of attractive women, were intended to entice men to join the site. The company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/ashley-madison-adultery-website-countersues-ex-employee-1.2583359\" target=\"_blank\">filed a counter-suit in March<\/a> alleging that the fake profile claims were intended to make it look bad.<\/p>\n<p>The Republic of Korea has yet to respond to the allegations and no hearing date has been set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ashley Madison, the popular dating site for people who are already in relationships, is suing South Korea. The suit, filed in a Canadian Federal Court, comes after the site&mdash;which has described itself as &ldquo;the most recognized name in infidelity&rdquo;&mdash;was banned by Korean Authorities earlier this year. &ldquo;The company accuses the South Korean government of engaging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61420,"featured_media":57795,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-57793","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/57793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/61420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/57793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/57795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57793"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=57793"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=57793"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=57793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}