Crosner Legal has filed a class action lawsuit in King County Superior Court against a prominent gig-economy platform, alleging violations of Washington’s Commercial Electronic Mail Act (CEMA). The lawsuit claims the company utilized a deceptive “referral” scheme to send unsolicited commercial text messages to Washington residents without their consent.
The complaint alleges that the platform’s app encourages users to send pre-written promotional texts to their personal contacts to recruit new workers and customers. By drafting the message content, providing the transmission mechanism, and financially rewarding the sender, the lawsuit argues the company “assisted” in the transmission of commercial texts in violation of CEMA (RCW 19.190). Washington law prohibits sending commercial texts to cellular numbers without the recipient’s clear, affirmative prior consent.
Why This Matters: Digital privacy is a growing concern. Companies cannot bypass anti-spam laws by using their own users as proxies to spam friends and family with marketing material.