Hate getting those unsolicited advertising texts on your cell phone? So does Bret L. Lusskin, who filed one of two class actions that popped up this week in federal court. He is particularly miffed at Google, Inc.’s new disco.com service, which allows group texts to fly en mass to phones, like the 105 he got. His lawsuit described as an “unsolicited barrage” that jammed his cell phone until the messages stopped.
The second lawsuit, by Brian Glauser named Twilio, Inc. and GroupMe, Inc. with similar complaints over bulk text messaging to groups created by individuals for personal reasons but allegedly also used to spam group members with text ads unless members opt-out.
Both lawsuits allege these new group texting services allow individuals to create groups for personal use by submitting phone numbers, but then the defendants allegedly “harvest” the phone numbers and send unsolicited texts to people who are unaware they were put in a group and don’t know how to opt out.
Glauser is from Virginia and Lusskin is from Florida but they both have the same California lawyers, Sean Reis and Jay Edelson of Edelson McGuire.
Both lawsuits say that every member of the class (and there are millions) is entitled to a minimum of $500 in damages for each violation. Now that’s a valuable text.
Cases: Glauser v. Twilio, Inc., C11-2584EDL (N. Dist. of Calif.)
Lusskin v. Google, Inc., C11-2585DMR (N.Dist. of Calif.)
Photo: Eduardo Deboni
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