Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages
from the frivolous-lawsuits dept
Ah, class action lawsuits in action. If you want an idea of how the class action lawsuit process is often used for completely ridiculous purposes, just take a look at three separate lawsuits filed by a bunch of California lawyers. Each lawsuit is separate (and embedded below), and all three were pointed out by Eric Goldman. The lawsuits are against Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and all are basically identical, other than the plaintiff. They're all attempts to file class actions against these companies for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which is supposed to block unsolicited contact to mobile phone lines. In all three cases, the plaintiffs were people who willingly turned on a feature in early April to receive text messages from each of these services. At some later date (probably a few days), each plaintiff chose to no longer receive those text messages, and responded to a message received by texting back "stop." As is quite typical, each of these services sent a message back to confirm that the person no longer wanted to receive such text messages. This is a completely standard procedure. And yet, these lawsuits claim that those messages broke the law, because the second the "stop" message was sent, any and all future messages, even the confirmation message, were unsolicited:Plaintiff continued to receive text message notifications from Defendant. At some point Plaintiff decided that he no longer wanted to receive text message notifications on his cellular telephone from Defendant.I can't see any of these lawsuits getting very far, and one would think there should be some sort of sanctions for setting up a situation like this solely for the purpose of filing a class action lawsuit. A confirmation message that the service provider is not to contact you again is hardly an unsolicited contact. It seems like it should be easy to argue that it was very much solicited by the individual issuing the "stop" command. That this law firm filed all three of these identical lawsuits at about the same time, also suggests that the message was very much solicited in that this law firm wanted to receive the confirmation message, solely for the purpose of filing a silly class action lawsuit (or three). The thing is, if this lawsuit goes anywhere, it'll create more of a hassle. Many of us like receiving a confirmation that we've been unsubscribed from something. This is clearly not the intent of the law, and one hopes that the courts will slap this down quickly.
Plaintiff then responded to Defendant’s last text message notification by replying “stop.”
At this point, Plaintiff withdrew any type of express or implied consent to receive text message notification to his cellular telephone.
In response to receiving this revocation of consent, Defendant then immediately sent another, unsolicited, confirmatory text message to Plaintiff’s cellular telephone.
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Filed Under: class action, spam, tcpa, text messaging, unsolicited
Companies: facebook, myspace, twitter
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I'd say those lawsuits are doing more harm by tying up the court system than those messages did by (briefly) tying up would-be unsubscribers.
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Confirmation
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what?
Is this situation even SLIGHTLY sue worthy? lol NO.
Huge waste of money, plaintiffs!
Like the article said: it IS a SOLICITED message that the plaintiff STARTED.
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I guess its no so common.
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Lawsuits
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Re: Lawsuits
Frankly, in my estimation, this is a REASONABLE lawsuit.... they do not need to 'confirm' things in umpteen ways.
ONE e-mail or text message saying I don't want anymore message should be enough with NO confirmation.
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Re: Re: Lawsuits
Customer: Please stop sending me txt messages
CSR: Ok, you would like us to stop sending you text messages?
Customer: Yes
CSR: Ok, I have setup your account so you will no longer receive txt messages. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Customer: No
People make mistakes, things are misunderstood, it is REASONABLE to confirm what the customer wants so there is no confusion. It is also REASONABLE to confirm that the customer is actually making the request.
Not confirming and causing a customer to loose a feature they want would be UNREASONABLE.
You also neglect to understand how simple it is to spoof an email.
If ONE email is enough to say you do not want anymore messages then all a malicious person needs to know is your email address and THEY can make that request for you.
With the confirmation process the malicious party can not complete the removal process just by simply knowing your email address.
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Re: Re: Re: Lawsuits
The word you are looking for is "lose"
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Here is an analogous situation that could be used in court (I am guessing it would be effective but IANAL). If one uses the internet, and along with that the TCP/IP protocol stack to request of some entity not to send any more messages. Your request has to be confirmed with an ACK message as part of the TCP protocol. Is that then a violation? This is not far fetched, as you could be using VOIP on your smartphone to make the request. Even if VOIP and TCP is not used, the process should be considered a type of protocol which requires confirmation to complete.
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wait maybe...
$.75 (actual damages) + 200000% (lawyer fees) = $1500
What they need to do is take the computer from the last story and teach it to recognize genuine laughter. (kind of an extension of what it does anyway) Then if the judge lols the case is dismissed.
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Check the US code cites
I vote for receiving confirmation notices. It makes it clear the request went through.
As for the requested amount: "(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation...." And the $500 is tripled for willful and knowing violation.
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Surprised....
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Good luck to them
What would be the use of recieving a confirmation from the same said cell phone?
I hope they get millions. Then maybe the stupidity would STOP!
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Sprint: Hi this is Sprint customer service, can I help you?
Me: I'd like to cancel my wireless account.
*CLICK*
Me: ... Huh?
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RE: Good luck to them
The confirmation is a good thing. It helps us from making mistakes that we, most of us anyway, occasionally make.
Just be glad we are not in the days of telegraph service stop
we'd have bigger problems stop
we'd stop getting stop messages stop
These attorneys are obviously not doing well if they are drumming up this kind of business. STOP!
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Virtual friends and virtual dates are demons. Try finding some real friends or a boyfriend/girlfriend who reads The Bible and knows Jesus as their Lord & Savior.
Cell phones and social media ruins personal, marital, and spiritual relationship.
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Re: Damages
I'm sure a penny for a one time confirmation message isn't going to break anybodies' bank account. And one penny certainly isn't worth suing over. Just delete the message and go on.
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They call it "strict liability"...
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Frivolous lawsuits
People who file silly or frivolous lawsuits should be made to pay their defendants' legal expenses when they lose. That would stop a lot of these nonsensical lawsuits.
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I hate those confirmations
I somehow how got onto one of those mailing list and got these daily messages. I saw my bill and was told the only way to stop them was to reply and request I stop them. I did and they sent me one of these high prices special message saying they got may request. Then another one of these high prices special messages saying they where processing it. Then another one of these high prices special messages saying it was just about done processing. Then another one of these high prices special messages saying it was done. Then another one of these high prices special messages saying I could sign up again if I wanted to. Then another one of these high prices special messages asking why I quite the service. Then another one of these high prices special messages asking me to reconfirm my stopping the service. Then only about 5 more over the next month to ask if I wanted to sign back up. Total cost was nearly $100 to quite the service I do not ever remember signing up for.
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hmmm
Even without the last line, it will be easy to add it in. Then, by signing up, you are agreeing to the confirmation message from the beginning
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Rules are the Rules
Nothing like being sued for complying with the rule book. Thanks go to the "Peoples Republic of Komifornia" Get a real job loosers.
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