Spam-Viting Allegations In Vogue?

Who is the sender when engaging a forward-to-a-friend feature to send invites?

Aloise v. Everalbum
Ruppe v. GatherApp
Class complaints – Defendants allegedly sent unsolicited (ATDS) marketing texts to plaintiffs’ mobiles. Each allegedly sent the texts through forward-to-a-friend features in their mobile apps that would ask users to share the app, and then execute address book blasts. Plaintiffs alleged app users had no control over the content or timing of the texts, and were never shown samples of the texts sent.
[Aloise v. Everalbum (M.D. FL; 6:17-cv-00837)]
[Ruppe v. GatherApp (Cook Co. Cir. CT.; 2017-CH-07052)]
jbho: plaintiffs may face uphill battles here. Based on the complaint, both apps appears to mirror processes for which Poshmark was recently granted summary judgement [Reichman-v-Poshmark (S.D. CA; 3:16-cv-02359)]. Will the courts in the 7th & 11th follow suit? 

For complaints filed almost two thousand kilometers apart by two separate firms, there are a lot of similarities in the filings. Interesting.

And for the record, the Poshmark app required a user to:
• Grant the app permission to access a contact list
• Tap on a ‘Find People’ button
• Choose the ‘Find friends from your contacts’ option
• Select individual contacts or all contacts
• Click an ‘Invite’ button to send the invitations

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