July 21 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Friday approved a $11.2 million settlement for a class-action lawsuit against Ashley Madison after hackers accessed users' personal information on the dating website.

Hackers published the credit card data, account details and usernames of at least 32 million Ashley Madison customers in August 2015.


Personal information contained on the website is particularly sensitive because Ashley Madison markets itself as a cheating website. For years, its tagline was, "Life is short. Have an affair."

Plaintiffs accused Ashley Madison of misleading customers about security measures on the website. The site, which is run by Toronto-based Ruby Corp., disagreed with the accusations but said it is settling in order to avoid the expense of continued litigation.

Final approval of the settlement is expected to happen at a Nov. 20 hearing.

Ruby Corp. agreed to pay $1.6 million to the Federal Trade Commission after federal regulators said the company failed to protect the personal information of the users.