A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter, after the social media site allegedly sent spam messages to users' phones.
The center of the suit turned to the short code technology which enabled companies to send out text messages to phone numbers. According to the suit, Twitter used the short code 40404 to send the spam messages, and to let the users know through SMS any activity linked to Twitter.
Massachusetts resident Beverly Nunes, one of the complainants, stated that she received notifications from various companies through Twitter's short code. Most of the messages that she received convinced her to avail of "swag bucks." Nunes explained that she was not supposed to receive these text messages because she doesn't have a Twitter account.
Other complainants involved in the lawsuit stated that the micro-blogging service flooded their inboxes with alerts and disrupted their sleep during the night. The suit demanded $5 million worth of damages and cited the federal law that prohibited robo-calling. In addition, the suit stated that Twitter intentionally ignored industry laws governing this issue.
Nunes believed that Twitter did not comply with the rule regarding disconnected phone numbers. Their short code affected both ported and disconnected numbers. This resulted to Twitter sending out their spam text messages to users who don't have a Twitter account. She also shared that she contacted Twitter requesting to discontinue the messages, but she was ignored.
"We believe these claims are without merit and will vigorously defend ourselves against them," Twitter said in a statement, as reported by GigaOm.
The lawsuit claimed that the company should pay $500 for each unwanted text message as prescribed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The law was enacted in 1991 to prevent unwanted phone calls and spam messages.
