A lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Florida involving allegations of widespread text
messaging-related violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection
Act ("TCPA") was recently settled. Because of the nature and commonality
of the marketing practices at issue, this TCPA litigation
ultimately settled on a class-wide basis.
What were the allegations at issue in the TCPA litigation?
This TCPA litigation was brought against a company and its owner
that provided text message-based marketing services to auto
dealerships. The plaintiff alleged that the marketing company
acquired his phone number by scraping unrelated Craigslist
advertisements and that it subsequently used the acquired number to
send him unsolicited text message advertisements without his prior
express written consent. Furthermore, this practice of scraping
Craigslist advertisements to generate phone number leads was
alleged to be extensive and systematic. Because of
