Millions of tech-savvy cheaters flock to infidelity website after festive break

Melbourne -  Infidelity website Ashley Madison witnessed a 390 per cent increase in traffic on January 9, the first day back from the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Around 2000 love rats took out membership on the site, designed to help married people have affairs with other adulterers, making it the busiest day over the previous 12-month period, the Herald Sun reported.

“Married couples spend large amounts of time together over the Christmas break and unfortunately for many, rather than this acting as a bonding exercise it simply highlights incompatibilities, especially when it comes to physical intimacy,” site founder Noel Biderman said.

“The Christmas-New Year period is a time when you are at a heightened state of sensitivity about your career, your health and your relationships.

“It’s an opportunity to say ‘I am changing’ and for millions of people around the world that means having an affair.”

Biderman asserted that Mondays were constantly the busiest day for the site, while the day after both Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day also resulted in vast surges in membership for disappointed partners.

Meanwhile, Australia has emerged as the firm's fastest-growing market with some 480,000 members joining the site since it launched in April 2010.

And it is not just men looking for affairs, either as while men outweighed women 2:1 in the 15 other countries the firm operated, the membership in Australia was split into 60:40.

“Australia is a very equitable society, much more so than other countries where we operate,” Biderman said.

“I’ve visited the country twice now and I’ve witnessed first-hand a very strong female culture. I think a lot of Australian women are saying I can be equal in the workplace so I will be equal in a relationship as well,” he added.