Facebook argues Motion to Dismiss in ‘happy birthday’ message campaign TCPA class action

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On April 25, 2016, Facebook Inc. (Facebook) pled with a California federal judge, asking that the court dismiss the claims filed against the social media giant for its alleged Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations. We wrote about this class action when it first surfaced back in February, and now Facebook hopes that the court will grant its Motion to Dismiss based on the fact that its ‘happy birthday’ messages are permissible under the TCPA. Facebook argued that the TCPA is meant to protect against telemarketing and robocalls not against personalized messages alerting its users about their friends’ birthdays. Facebook said in its Motion to Dismiss, “This sort of message –that identifies a specific individual with a specific connection to plaintiff and relates to a specific event on a specific date—is a far cry from the type of impersonal, en masse communications that the [TCPA] prohibits.” Additionally, Facebook argued that the TCPA requires the use of an “automated telephone dialing system,” and its birthday messages are sent only after a user inputs their own telephone number into Facebook. This is also why Facebook argues that even if these messages fell under TCPA regulations, they have received consent from their users. Facebook also questions the lead plaintiff’s standing, but much like the rest of us, they are awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in Spokeo Inc. v. Robins. We will follow this case and see what the California judge decides.

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