Leaked data: Big majority of adultery website users in Philippines are male

MANILA, Philippines — Men comprise 70 to 95 percent of users in various locations in the Philippines of adultery website Ashley Madison, according to a visualization of leaked data.

Madrid-based technology firm Tecnilogica plotted the data released by hackers this week into an interactive world map dubbed Malfideleco showing the distribution and ratio of male and female users of the infidelity matching site world wide.

Based on the map, a large concentration of users in the Philippines are in Metro Manila and Central Luzon while some are scattered in the Visayas and Mindanao, especially in urban areas.

Hackers bared detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison's parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc. The website — whose slogan is, "Life is short. Have an affair" — is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.

Screenshot from "Malfideleco" by Tecnilogica showing areas in the Philippines where several users of Ashley Madison adultery website are located.

The visualization's authors at Tecnilogica said the leaked data of 30 million users had to be trimmed down to location for the chart by removing sensitive information.

"The reason for this is twofold: first, we downsize the size of the data to operate with, and on the other, we protect the privacy of the users. The remaining data contains the user gender, the sign-up date, and the city where they are located," they said in a blog entry.

The chart makes it impossible for viewers to connect any point on the map to particular users.

"Also, we deleted the data from users living in little 'lifeless' cities to avoid the effect 'we caught you because you are the only user from Boreland-upon-Nowhere'," they said.

The hackers who took credit for the break-in had accused the website's owners of deceit and incompetence, and said the company refused to bow to their demands to close the site.

Pennsylvania-based Institute for Marital Healing said in a study that marital infidelity is one of the most traumatic of all life experiences, but noted that the "identification of the emotional, character and spiritual conflicts that contribute to marital infidelity can be uncovered and resolved."

It warned that the use Internet pornography is a "major factor" in the growth of unfaithful acts.

The institute cites a 2007 survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago suggesting that 22 percent of men have had a sex partner other than their spouse while married, compared to 13 percent of women.  — with reports from the Associated Press