Quick Bar Study Break – Ashley Trashy Madison has sued the owners of AshleyMadisonSucks.com and AshleyMadisonScam.com for $75,000 each on the grounds that they have infringed their trademark.  Trashy Madison claims that the sites are “confusingly similar.”

Now, I’m no trademark law scholar, but I have taken trademark and I know that “gripe sites” generally are okay, especially when they have a noncommercial purpose.  But don’t take it from me, just see what the Las Vegas Trademark Attorney has to say about it:

I don’t know how Canadian courts handle this kind of case up north, but down here, we would call this a pretty strong example of a) non-commercial, fair use of a party’s trademark and b) using allegations of trademark infringement in a lawsuit to quash the lawful exercise of free speech.

Of course, is it really no surprise that a company whose entire business model is established around encouraging extra-marital affairs would resort to a such a questionable course of action in order to obtain possession of some gripe website domain names (and removing some criticism of its services at the same time).

Hmm…I know from first-hand experience that Trashy Madison doesn’t like it when people speak out against them…

Sources: Las Vegas Trademark Attorney and Courthouse News Service

If you remember the transitive property from your math class know that if A=B and B=C, then A=C.

That’s kinda what we’ve got here. We know that MyMarriageMatters.org equals MyMarriageMatters@gmail.com and AshleyMadison equals MyMarriageMatters@gmail.com. Therefore, we can safely conclude that MyMarriageMatters.org = AshleyMadison.

Oh yeah, here’s a copy of the letter from Ryan Hill threatening to sue me. Ironically, his repetitive denials of affiliation with the e-mail account is what caught him in a lie. Thanks Ryan.

So if Ryan didn’t email me (even though the same address was listed on his site), then who did? How about we take a look at what I like to call the Don’t Mess With Jarrod Post. There’s absolutely no reason why Trashy Madison would post a comment conforming prior email correspondence on my blog as Ryan Hill unless they were somehow involved with him.

What does Trashy Madison stand to gain by running a fake anti-Ashley Madison campaign? A lot actually. It’s called expanded advertising. MMM managed to get ad time during the NBA Playoffs. Trashy Madison probably wouldn’t be so fortunate. And if you look at the commercial, you’ll see a little too much Trashy Madison for an anti site.

Let’s not forget that people (divorce attorneys) don’t spend thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of dollars for you to go to their site and sign a petition. When you go national with your causes, it means that you have a way that people can get actively involved and your organization has been around for more than about two months.

I’ve surfed the web and there’s so many people that called BS upon seeing the MMM commercial. It really didn’t even seem right. I’ve had the privilege of covering this story first hand and there’s other inconsistencies that I will keep to myself since it will be my word v. Ryan.

I honestly believed Ryan when he told me that he didn’t send those emails. However, after it was brought to my attention that Ryan used the same email address on his Facebook badge, I knew he was lying. I knew that he told me he wasn’t connected with the address on the phone, but I had no hard evidence. Then I stumbled back across Ryan’s letter…

I don’t want to hear any crazy theories (well what if a third party hacked into the accounts of both MMM and Trashy Madison?) because I think it’s a relatively simple issue here.

Oh yeah and if you’re still not convinced: tell me who would self fund a national anti-Ashley Madison campaign when your law firm’s site looks like this. By the way according to the letter and his voicemail, he’s the Law Offices of Ryan Hill or Ryan E. Hill, P.L.L.C.

But wait there’s more. Ryan said that he operates a “mid-sized” law firm, but there’s only three people shown on the front page. In fact, there’s not even one attorney named on the site. No attorney profiles or anything. If you search for “Can-Am Legal Services” he seems to be the only one associated with the firm. And if he’s a divorce attorney, then tell me what you see when you click on the areas of practice page.

Let’s not forget that the MyMarriageMatters.org is registered under Domains by Proxy, Inc., a company that specializes in concealing the identity of website registrants.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

And if you’re still not convinced, here’s a cached version of his site with the e-mail address mymarriagematters@gmail.com listed on the Contact Us page. “Someone” later replaced this address with ryan@mymarriagematters.org.

Wow, what better way to start my BAR review recess than to have this jewel sitting at the top of my page. I posted earlier today about a new site called MyMarriageMatters which is an anti-Ashley Madison site. It turns out that Ashley Trashy Madison must find our sites to be a threat because Trashy Madison was sending e-mails as Ryan Hill, of MyMarriageMatters.org. They even got me with that fake e-mail address mymarriagematters@gmail.com.

I erroneously thought that MyMarriageMatters was in some way affiliated with Trashy Madison when I received a comment from a “Ryan Hill” with the same IP Address as Caitlyn Coverly, an employee of Trashy Madison (see pictures above). The e-mail address matched the e-mails that I had been receiving from “Ryan Hill” requesting statistics and other information from me.

Now why would Trashy Madison do this? I can only come up with two explanations. 1) Trashy Madison wanted two of their opponents to bicker. I doubt this was it because I don’t think that they are smart enough to plan for me to notice the IP addresses. Rather, I think it’s 2) Trashy Madison is upset that MyMarriageMatters got some airtime. They also wanted to get some information out of me. Here’s the text of an e-mail that I received from Trashy Madison posing as Ryan Hill of MyMarriageMatters:

Hi Jarrod,

Sorry I haven’t touched base with you. I have been extremely busy getting our commercial ready – aired last night for the first time!
I am working on a page for our website called “Noel Biderman says” and we will be creating a page proving him wrong.

If you have any time and want to assist me with this let me know.

The three statements we are going after are:

“Infidelity can save your marriage”

“Monogamy is dead”

“Commercials don’t influence people”

I want to use stats to prove these statements wrong.

Let me know.

Ryan

I APOLOGIZE to Ryan Hill and MyMarriageMatters.org for the mix-up. Let the record reflect that MyMarriageMatters.org has ABSOLUTELY NO RELATIONSHIP to Trashy Madison. Trashy Madison set up a fake e-mail account and pretended to be Ryan Hill.

Again I ask, what kind of confidential marital affairs website do you run Noel? You can’t even set up a fake e-mail address with me knowing. This just goes to show you how far Trashy Madison will go and how low they will stoop.

Update: Ashley Madison = MyMarriageMatters.org. My gut instinct was right. Check it out here

I really think it’s time to have someone that knows fidelity go against Noel. I think Bila did a good job, but you’ve got to get to the root of the issue.

1. There’s a market for everything, but that doesn’t mean you have to exploit it. There’s a market for every drug, child pornography, etc. Bila did make this point.

2. Most important: Ashley Trashy Madison DOES encourage people to cheat. When the risk (cost) associated with an act goes down, people are more likely to engage in that behavior. It’s simple cost-benefit analysis. We act where the benefits outweigh the costs. If you reduce the costs, it becomes more desirable. Please believe that if there was a way to eliminate the trace of child pornography, viewership would skyrocket.

3. It’s not a marriage if you have to cheat to stay happy. Couples go through problems. That’s why you have to talk them out. But when you feel as though things can’t possibly get better, then you need to move on. Sleeping with someone is not going to make your problems go away.

4. Attack bad logic altogether. While I don’t care too much about shows like Desperate Housewives, at the end of the day, it’s just a show. Trashy Madison is a real website that affects real lives. Watching Desperate Housewives may encouragepeople to cheat, but it certainly doesn’t make it easier to cheat. And that’s the problem that I have with the site.

Source: Mediaite

Sophie Froment

If you are a young, intelligent, beautiful woman running for Miss Universe-Canada, the last thing you want is an endorsement from Ashley Trashy Madison. Sophie Froment is a member of the marital dating site and Ashley Madison has been trying to get people to vote for her.

Sophie is 20-years-old, so I don’t know if she is married or not. Even if she is single, she still has no business being on a marital affairs website, especially when her pageant profile states:

Sophie Froment is not just your ordinary girl; she is the girl next door…

Sophie is also a person who is sensitive. She doesn’t like to be shaken up, or confronted by other people, because she is the kind of girl who likes to help, to talk things out, and not a kind of short-tempered person who wants to fight…

She’s an honest person who always tries to be the best that she can be – which is one of her best qualities. She has learned that to be respected, you have to respect; and to receive, you have to give…

I’m pretty sure the girl next door wouldn’t join Trashy Madison. I guess she’s not too nonconfrontational since she likes sleeping with married men. For some strange reason, wives don’t like that. And you can’t respect other people’s relationships too much if you are a Trashy Madison member.

It’s a darn shame too because her resume is otherwise flawless.

Source: Miss Universe Canada

Random point: Isn’t Trashy Madison supposed to be a confidential website. Why is it that they are putting their members on blast like that? I’m fairly sure Sophie didn’t ask for their help.

When I first posted on their blog Ashley Trashy Madison quickly responded with some boilerplate crap about how their blog is about creating a discussion. I then instantly put them on the spot and asked them some sensible questions to which I have yet to receive a response. I’m not surprised.

In the meanwhile, please enjoy my first post where I embed a tweet. I know, I know, I’m a techie.

Once again, Ashley Madison manages to distort the truth.  Monogamy has nothing to do with genetics.  If you believe that having a ring finger that is longer than an index finger makes you predisposed to cheating, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.

The TRUTH is that monogamy is a social institution.  There are numerous factors that influence one’s decision to be monogamous:  parents, religion, personal experiences, happiness in a relationship etc.

This is something that you all should know since Noel Biderman, founder of your companies, claims that he is a monogamous relationship because this is how he was raised. (“Mr Biderman, who’s happily married with two young children, says he was raised to believe in a monogamous relationship. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/infidelity-website-launches-in-australia-20100412-s3i6.html)

But we’re not raising people to be in monogamous relationships anymore.  Look at all of the scandals in the media.  It’s pretty hard for a kid nowadays to believe in monogamy being that all he/she hears are stories on infidelity.

If you want to talk about what’s natural, just look at a dog.  Dogs act solely off of instinct and will hump anything.  Fortunately, we as a developed species have developed forethought based on personal mores and laws.  That’s why if you see an attractive 15-year-old, you know to keep walking down the street instead of trying to pick her up.

I’m saying this as someone who cheated on every girlfriend that I’ve ever had until my present girlfriend.  I’ve never so much as poked a girl on Facebook since we’ve been together.  Why? Because I am 1) mature and 2) extremely happy.  Ironically enough, happiness is the same reason why Noel Biderman claims that he doesn’t cheat.  Go figure.

I’m sure the moderators will try to go ahead and delete this comment because you all don’t want the truth exposed.  Doesn’t really matter to me, because I’ll just post it up on my blog.

Once again, Ashley Madison manages to distort the truth.  Monogamy has nothing to do with genetics.  If you believe that having a ring finger that is longer than an index finger makes you predisposed to cheating, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.

The TRUTH is that monogamy is a social institution.  There are numerous factors that influence one’s decision to be monogamous:  parents, religion, personal experiences, happiness in a relationship etc.

This is something that you all should know since Noel Biderman, founder of your companies, claims that he is a monogamous relationship because this is how he was raised. (“Mr Biderman, who’s happily married with two young children, says he was raised to believe in a monogamous relationship. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/infidelity-website-launches-in-australia-20100412-s3i6.html)

But we’re not raising people to be in monogamous relationships anymore.  Look at all of the scandals in the media.  It’s pretty hard for a kid nowadays to believe in monogamy being that all he/she hears are stories on infidelity.

If you want to talk about what’s natural, just look at a dog.  Dogs act solely off of instinct and will hump anything.  Fortunately, we as a developed species have developed forethought based on personal mores and laws.  That’s why if you see an attractive 15-year-old, you know to keep walking down the street instead of trying to pick her up.

I’m saying this as someone who cheated on every girlfriend that I’ve ever had until my present girlfriend.  I’ve never so much as poked a girl on Facebook since we’ve been together.  Why? Because I am 1) mature and 2) extremely happy.  Ironically enough, happiness is the same reason why Noel Biderman claims that he doesn’t cheat.  Go figure.

I’m sure the moderators will try to go ahead and delete this comment because you all don’t want the truth exposed.  Doesn’t really matter to me, because I’ll just post it up on my blog (which you’re reading now).

Jerry Seinfeld is creating a new  ”stand-up/reality TV hybrid” show on NBC called The Marriage Ref.  The show allows husbands and wifes to duke it out over common issues problems and have a “referee” to decide who’s the winner.  Seinfeld says

“I hope it’s not grandiose to say, but maybe it’ll save a marriage here and there,” he explains. “I gotta believe that somewhere, someone out there is going to go, ‘I’m not the only one!’”

Living up to their name Ashley Trashy Madison, the marital affairs website, plans on advertising during the show.  The tasteless company even bragged about it on their blog.  The Fox News article says that NBC reached out to Trashy Madison, but this has not been confirmed.  It may be the other way around.

Some people wonder whether The Marriage Ref itself will cast relationships in a negative light.  I don’t think this show is any different from Why Did I Get Married Too? The point is to show that couples have real problems and that the point is to address these issues.  In fact, Seinfeld is a monogamy advocate.  When asked about monogamy, he had the following to say:

My personal viewpoint is this: The problem with humans is our heads are just way too big. And one of the greatest appeals of monogamy is the simplification of the mental process.

I don’t have any friends who aren’t faithful to their wives, but if I did, my main question would be, “Who’s got time to figure all that out?” It’s just too much work. The emotions that have to be disposed of, the values, the ethics…. All I see is this gigantic amount of work for a fleeting pleasure.

People should get married because they have finally seen the folly of being single: “Oh, this is all just kind of a bad magic trick. I just keep bending over to reach for this wallet on a string. How much longer am I gonna do that?”

Thank you for standing up for monogamy Mr. Seinfeld.  I hope to catch your show sometime.  And I really hope NBC doesn’t give in and allow those ads in.

Source: CNN (Seinfeld) / Fox News (Trashy Madison)

If I told you that I created the Manogamy Movement and cheated, would I have any credibility?  Probably not.  So why is it that people don’t call Noel Biderman of Ashley Trashy Madison when he talks about he was raised to be monogamous and he is in a monogamous marriage.  He said he didn’t cheat a over a year ago on the Tyra Show and most recently said the same thing on Joy Behar.  That doesn’t make any sense.

On one hand he says

“When something is not in our DNA, and monogamy is surely not in our DNA, then you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t on its last legs.”

Then in the same article he says

Mr Biderman, who’s happily married with two young children, says he was raised to believe in a monogamous relationship.

“It doesn’t make it right or wrong and people who are happy in a monogamous marriage – that’s incredible,” he said.

Am I the only one that sees the problem with that?  Creating a company whose sole existence is to foster affairs and private supporting monogamy is the same thing as

• National spokesperson for a Pro-Life organization getting an abortion
• Steve Jobs preferring a Microsoft Zune MP3 player over an iPod.
• The CEO of Coke drinking Pepsi at home

This is not a case where he just stumbled into a profession like a woman that is down on her luck and strips to make ends meet.  Mr. Biderman made the conscious decision to create this company himself.  You can’t have it both ways: You either are lying about being faithful to your wife or you’re a big hypocrite.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

At what point is a marriage just not a marriage? A recent The Star (Toronto) talks about the huge increase in female infidelity, especially on marital dating sites such as Ashley Trashy Madison.

I can’t help but read these stories and just shake my head (for those that don’t know what SMH stands for). All of these women have been married for less than the 7 Year Itch and have used the site to commit affairs.

The story focuses on a woman named Susan that started using the site at the age of 25. She’s now 27 and has used the site to foster four affairs.  This crazy woman says that it has improved her marriage.

“I come home smiling after and I’m just fulfilled, which kind of cuts up my resentment toward my husband, because I just feel better — physically, emotionally, everything.”

When will people realize there’s something wrong if you have to sleep around just to “stay with that person.”  The article says that many people treat marriage like a job, they say in it until they have something already lined up.  And that’s part of the site’s success.  But if you are TRULY happy, you would leave the relationships immediately.  That’s the problem; people would rather be unhappy with someone else than alone.  That’s extremely selfish, but unfortunately that mentality seems to be on the rise.

Source:  The Star (Toronto)