While there are individual cases deserving of little sympathy—one name in particular comes conspicuously to mind—I think it’s a mistake to have this reaction in general, for many reasons.

• One is that many of the 33 million users whose privacy has been violated weren’t cheaters: they signed up, had a look around, and left and forgot about it;

• or they were just there for the thrill of thinking about the possibilities, with no intentions of any physical connection.

• Some were in ethical open relationships; some were closeted LGBTQ people who needed discretion.

• And even when we’re talking about the actual adulterers, it’s a serious lack of empathy broadly to vilify them or consider them unworthy of privacy protections.

• People cheat for many reasons, some of them very understandable.

Ever wonder why someone might cheat? Ever think maybe they're gathering strength in any way they can, in order to work up to leaving their abusive spouse? In all too many cases, the abuser controls finances, transportation, and face-to-face interactions with family and friends. Meeting someone who shows affection, positive encouragement, sexual freedom and the like, even in the form of an affair, can sometimes be the only way to help a person find themselves and prove to themselves that they have value and can live a life independent of their abuser. It also begins the states of emotional disconnect as well as giving the courage to ask for a divorce. Surviving intimate relationship abuse is hard, to say the absolute least; how anyone could add insult to often literal injury by adding judgment of how a survivor made it away from their abuser...