It's interesting you claim the word "honest". You lied about posting her picture online. Not only did you post it online, you targeted her classmates and let them know she was flirting with some douche in your company!
Yeah, no one would ever possibly be creeped out by that.
You think it's ok because you have good intentions. Guess what? So does every other creep. It's not up to you to decide whether your actions are frightening. You took a bet that you could stalk (message all her classmates!) and dox (post her picture online!) a girl without her permission and without even the slightest self-awareness that it's invasive behavior. And then you tried to lie about key details.
You, sir, are exactly the kind of male-privileged "brogrammer" that is giving this industry a bad name these days.
I haven't lied. We were talking about different things. I was referring to the fact that throughout these discussions none of her actual info has come out and that we've been careful not to post any of the information we discovered about her from our search. I edited my comment to try to make that more clear.
Also the ad didn't say that she was flirting with anybody and it was designed with an attempt to not make her look bad in any way.
Finally, she is aware of the whole deal and has been a good sport, and is not upset.
You guys absolutely have written about her flirtations in this blog post, which everyone who saw that Facebook ad can now link back to her.
You said you didn't post any of her info online.. you ran a friggin Facebook ad campaign with her picture on it (which you obtained not from her)! Now you've just edited your comment to say you didn't post any other info about her that you obtained.
You did all this without her permission, according to your colleague. Now you're trying to weasel out of that too with ambiguous phrases like "she is aware". Yeah, after you told her what you already did.
Did it not even occur to you that it could be potentially embarrassing or invasive? What if she wasn't cool with it? What if she's just playing cool because you forced her hand? It's wrong of you to assume it's ok to cyberstalk someone for "fun" because your intentions are good -- your intentions being having a laugh with your bros.
The other point here, even if you think bro'ing out like this is perfectly acceptable workplace behavior / way to treat women, is that it's just incredibly stupid for a startup to tarnish their brand this way. Just don't do it.
"stalk [verb]: to follow, watch, and bother (someone) constantly in a way that is frightening, dangerous, etc."
-- merriam-webster
This very much was not the case.
If it makes you feel better, the ad was also taken down very quickly.