‘False or Misleading’ Spam Emails Sent by Defenders Violated Florida Law, Class Action Claims

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Defenders, Inc. is facing a proposed class action lawsuit that claims the home security company sent marketing emails that violated the Florida Electronic Mail Communications Act (FEMCA).

The case says that FEMCA is a Florida statute designed to “promote the integrity of electronic commerce…” and “…protect the public and legitimate businesses from deceptive and unsolicited commercial electronic mail.” Among other restrictions, FEMCA forbids the transmission of unsolicited commercial emails that contain “false or misleading information” in the subject line.

According to the complaint, the lead plaintiff in the case received an email from Defenders around September 16, 2019 that contained the following subject line:

In the body of the email, however, the plaintiff claims she found the following provision written in small, light font:

The complaint argues that this provision falsified the statement in the subject line that offered free ADT monitoring by indicating that ADT’s purportedly “free” services would in fact cost a substantial amount of money. The case claims that the defendant’s email violated FEMCA in that it was sent without the plaintiff’s affirmative or implied consent and contained false information in the subject line.

The suit seeks to certify a class that includes anyone in Florida who received the same email as the lead plaintiff within the last four years.