March 13, 2008
Ashley Madison Beats Eliot Spitzer To Death
Not content to let America have all the schadenfreude fun, Ashley Madison—Toronto-based online dating company intended for people looking to cheat on their spouses, whose slogan is "when monogamy becomes monotony" and who is responsible for TV ads like these—took out a full-page ad in today's New York Post.
Addressed to Eliot Spitzer, the now–former New York Governor who was caught hiring prostitutes, the open letter (at right) slicks a thick coat of sleaze onto an already sleazy situation, suggesting that Spitzer wouldn't have gotten in all this trouble if only he'd registered for an account with the "safe and secure" website, as though the ethical crookedness of a situation can be mitigated by simply not getting caught for it (which Spitzer totally would have been).
Oh well! Stay classy, Ashley Madison!
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And Virgin Mobile Canada is also using Eliot Spitzer in an ad this week!
Technically speaking, Spitzer is still the Governor until Monday.
Idle question: why is TOist plastered with "Should Hillary Quit" ads?
spacejack: see here. They're keyword/context-sensitive Google Ads, and they're going away soon.
Firefox with Adblock Plus plug-in makes short work of those pesky ads...
Aww, I thought Google was smart enough to know that someone at my IP address likely can't vote against Hillary. I will now be forced to downgrade my estimation of their engineers from genius to merely brilliant.
Is anyone else annoyed that Spitzer managed to make headlines for a couple of days here? He has no international significance, no ties to Obama or McCain, and getting caught will have no impact on the day-to-day for Canadians. So why was he on the front page of the Star (twice?), Metro, etc?
For the same reason why Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are plastered all over the news: WE LOVE SLEAZE
It's much more relevant here in Toronto than in California - we actually border New York. Many of our international relations focus more on the Ontario-New York border than Washington-Ottawa.
Also it's funny because prostitution is legal here, and those silly Americans with their backwards morality laws screw themselves over, literally, all the time.
Prostitution is legal here, but soliciting a prostitute isn't. So Spitzer would still be in trouble.
nippleholic - I'm just as annoyed by that crap too.
Kevin - What role did Spitzer play in Ontario-New York trade? Will retiring change anything? Was he promoting, or standing in the way of, something that would have some effect on us? Somehow I doubt any of the articles about this even mention trade with Ontario.
I remember reading this in Thursday's Star, Rek.
"It's much more relevant here in Toronto than in California"
This is one of the dumber things I've seen posted by an ist staff member and I've see a lot of them.
FYI, the Virgin ads were created by this local copywriter...
http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/
JG - Was it front page, above the fold?
the walrus already did a post on this - http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/03/12/spitzers-new-pimp/
What's funny down here, people are so "morally outraged" that Spitzer cheated on his wife and went to a prostitute...yet, sites like Ashley Madison do quite well down here in a country with a 52% divorce rate. You could throw a rock and probably hit someone cheating on their spouse...and as far as the prostitute...She's alreayd famous, we can't seem to get enough of her and peeks into the "world of high priced call girls"...I guess we don't like the low-priced ones.
I'll take a politician who gets a little on the side, to a guy who drops bombs on women and children yelling "Bring `em on!" anyday.
And hey, our Gov made entertainment tonight...not too shabby.
Rek: I have this feeling it was on the front page, mostly on the lower half but perhaps peeking out just about the fold. It may have been on the page with the continuation of the main story, though. I cosidered going to the recycling room at the end of the hall to dig up that day's A section, but then it occurred to me that it woudn't be worth it. I hope you understand.
I found the Ashley Madison very helpful when it came time for me to have an affair. While I don't agree with them taking such a high-profile ad out, I guess they do need to advertise. There is already tons of sites dedicated to cheating like affair tips and the like. Why is anyone really suprised that a online dating site would cater to cheaters? Chances are, someone you know has cheated or been cheated on. Obviously there is a market for cheating-oriented sites.