By Puja J . Amin
TWILIO TROUBLES
TWILIO IN TROUBLE ?
Enterprising TCPA Complaint Seeks To Hold Twilio Liable For Illegal Calls Made By Users Of Its Platform . . . And This Could Be MASSIVE
By Puja J . Amin
SO a few weeks ago , I became fed up with Twilio blocking legitimate communications , and I said a few things about it . And so did numerous others .
Well , it turns out that Twilio might not just be wrongfully blocking legal and legitimate traffic ; it might be turning a blind eye to wretched illegal robocalls — that , according to a new class action complaint seeking to hold Twilio responsible for potential TCPA violations .
In the new complaint — available here : Twilio Class Action — a consumer named Michael Anthony claims he received numerous robotexts and robocalls from numbers owned by Twilio without his consent .
Interestingly , he also alleges he spoke with Twilio ’ s litigation counsel and a paralegal and demanded the messages stop , but they continued .
As Twilio is a platform and not the ultimate sender of the messages at issue , TCPA suits of this sort against Twilio are relatively rare . Still , they are not unprecedented , and at least one proceeded past the pleadings stage .
The new suit — brought by the Godfather of TCPA class actions — seeks to hold Twilio liable , arguing that “ Plaintiff notified Twilio that it continually originated unlawful robocalls to his wireless number without consent [;] Twilio turned a blind eye and did nothing .”
In Plaintiff ’ s view , this could make the difference between suits where platforms are allowed out of cases and those where they must answer for calls made by users of their technology : “ Like the knowledge Twilio obtained through Plaintiff ’ s communications begging for Twilio to stop contacting him , Courts have refused to dismiss suits where the defendant knew that illegal activity was underway .”
Anthony also alleges the FCC ordered Twilio to stop carrying illegal traffic or face a shutdown : “ Failure to comply with the steps outlined in this letter may result in downstream voice service providers blocking all of Twilio ’ s traffic , permanently .”
Pretty serious allegations , of course .
It remains to be seen if there is any merit to the claims .
Notably , the suit is not a class action . But if the theory asserted in the complaint catches on , the next one very well could be .
The central theme of the complaint appears to be that Twilio ought to honor network-wide opt outs , but that does not seem consistent with the TCPA ’ s CFR regs related to company-specific DNC requests . So while I am annoyed at Twilio for blocking lawful traffic , I understand why it would be resistant to banning every one of its users from contacting a phone number merely because of a single opt-out request .
Then again , the messages Plaintiff is complaining about appear to be unconsented marketing texts . It ’ s unclear to me why Twilio let those messages through while blocking consented informational messages in other contexts .
We ’ ll keep a very close eye on this .
While I have you , a quick reminder that virtual tickets for Law Conference of Champions are on sale now .
TROUTMANAMIN . COM • 25