After hackers threatened to release information of millions of adulterous clients, Ashley Madison, the online dating service for married people seeking extramarital relations, is allowing their customers to delete accounts for free.

The option to delete usually costs customers $19.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, the hackers, who called themselves "Impact Team," seem to be acting as consumer advocates, saying, “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

The hackers also said that if Avid Life Media, the parent company that owns Ashley Madison as well as other dating sites, did not permanently delete the info in all forms, they would "release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails."

A statement on the Ashley Madison site stated, “We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place, including working with leading IT vendors from around the world.”

As quoted in the Guardian, Tod Beardsley, the security engineering manager at the cybersecurity firm Rapid7, said this particular hack is potentially very harmful, adding, “Dating sites also host millions of intensely private scraps of user data."

“Users of these services may routinely share risqué photos, checklists of sexual preferences, and patterns of romantic activity that they consider deeply personal. Because of this, any breach involving a dating site comes with a built-in ‘ickiness’ factor," added Beardsley.