In April 2017, a California court awarded just over $60 million to Craigslist in their suit against an online real estate rental service. The judgment was primary based on CAN-SPAM violations.
Craigslist won $40 million for violations related to 400,000 emails, or $100 per email. The email violations included:
- Deceptive subject lines
- Examples included: “A Landlord messaged you”, “Your charming Apartment”, “Love your place!”
- Deceptive message content
- The absence of a functioning unsubscribe method
- The absence of a physical postal address for the sender
The case included a number of different issues, but it is one more reminder of the potentially severe consequences that can result from the failure to adhere to CAN-SPAM requirements.
The real estate rental service, RadPad, which had raised approximately $13 million in private equity and had as many as half a million active users, struggled under the weight of the legal fees. According to TechCrunch, it was sold in early 2017 after nearly shutting down.
A copy of the complaint can be found through this link (details of the CAN-SPAM claim for relief begin on page 12, row 8):
A copy of the final judgment can be found here:
