The Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibits unsolicited calls and e-mail text messages to cell phones, based on a ruling last week in an Arizona appellate court, according to The Associated Press.
The ruling stemmed from a 2001 lawsuit filed against Acacia Mortgage Corp. by Rodney L. Joffe, founder of online marketing services provider Whitehat Inc., Tempe, AZ, and a well-known proponent of opt-in-only e-mail marketing. He claimed that unsolicited e-mail text messages to his cell phone by an autodialer violated a provision of the TCPA.
Though Acacia argued that calls and e-mails were not the same and that the law infringed on First Amendment rights, the Court of Appeals panel of three judges upheld a trial judge's pretrial ruling in favor of Joffe.
In October 2001, Acacia settled a lawsuit filed by Verizon Wireless under Colorado's Junk E-Mail Law that required the mortgage company to stop sending spam to Verizon Wireless customers.
