What events led to the hacking of Ashley Madison?

The hacking of Ashley Madison, a website designed for individuals seeking extramarital affairs, was orchestrated by a group or individual known as "The Impact Team" in July 2015. The events leading up to the hack were rooted in the alleged dishonest business practices of Avid Life Media (ALM), the parent company of Ashley Madison. The Impact Team claimed ALM lied to its customers about a service that allowed users to completely erase their profiles for a fee, suggesting that the data was not actually purged from the system. In addition to this purported deceit, The Impact Team expressed moral objections to the nature of Ashley Madison's services. They demanded that ALM take down Ashley Madison and another one of their websites, Established Men, threatening to release user data if their demands were not met. After ALM failed to comply with these ultimatums, The Impact Team released sensitive information belonging to millions of users, leading to widespread personal and professional repercussions for those whose data was exposed.