A federal judge from the Northern District of Illinois has ruled that Sprint customers can pursue a class-action lawsuit against Yahoo (Yahoo! Inc.) due to automated text messages that were received on behalf of the Yahoo Messenger service. The plaintiffs state that the welcome messages violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and that they were sent via autodialer to their cell phones.
Judge Manish Shah stated that the Sprint customers who signed up for Yahoo Messenger between March 1st, 2013 and March 31st, 2013 are eligible to participate in the lawsuit. Yahoo opposed the lawsuit on the grounds that message was part of a single message included in the introductory notice to Messenger users.
According to the case,
“a jury could find that there are two separate and individual texts, the user text to the consumer and the Welcome text which is sent automatically by Yahoo as a separate text message.”
The Plaintiff, however, stated that he never signed up for the Yahoo Messenger service, nor did he provide Yahoo with his phone number, and that the messages were spam.
The plaintiffs suit seeks statutory damages of $500 per infraction and up to $1,500 per knowing or willful violation. Judge Shah said in his initial ruling that the proposed class could include over 500,000 Sprint users. A T-Mobile suit regarding the same incident was not certified by the judge.
Read full PDF of the case: Yahoo Autodialer Lawsuit Filing