When it comes to pizza, advertising for the product is unavoidable.  Television, radio, print media, online ads… pizza advertisements are as ubiquitous as mozzarella cheese for the various pizza chains of the world.  Nobody does advertising quite like Papa John’s.  Trading on their owner/founder’s regular guy status, Papa John’s has built a pizza empire using impressive stunts like free pizza for the Super Bowl coin flip to build their brand.  However, some people claim that Papa John’s advertisements and deals are unwanted, and have filed a lawsuit to that effect.  Papa John’s is facing a $250 million dollar lawsuit over unwanted texts.

“After I ordered from Papa John’s, my telephone started beeping with text messages advertising pizza specials,” claims Erin Chutich, one of the plaintiffs.  ”Papa John’s never asked permission to send me text message advertisements.”

The lawsuit claims that Papa John’s sent 500,000 unwanted text messages in 2010 via a service called OnTime4U.  Both Papa John’s and OnTime4U were named in the lawsuit.  The company ended its involvement with OnTime4U in April 2010 after a lawsuit was filed; at that time, the company sent a memo to franchisees and corporate stores telling them that unsolicited spam texts was likely illegal.  Papa John’s claims there is no merit to the lawsuit and maintains the problem was caused by third-party vendors and a few franchisees.

I guess being sued better than having your franchise burned down by Domino’s, but not by much.  The damages being sought by the plaintiffs turns out to be about $500 per text message.

Tags: pizza advertisement, advertisements, text messages, spam text messages, papa john’s, ontime4u, papa john’s text messages, papa john’s faces 0 million spam lawsuit, unusual lawsuits, spam text message lawsuits, spam lawsuits, papa john’s spam lawsuit, papa john’s text lawsuit, papa john’s faces lawsuit, advertising law suit, class action lawsuits, Erin Chutich

There have been some high lottery jackpots in the past, but we are reaching rarified air.  It’s been awhile since someone won the Powerball, and the number keeps getting higher and higher.  There’s a new record Powerball jackpot of $600 million waiting to be won, so make sure you pick up your tickets before tonight’s [...]

There are a lot of scary things about tornadoes.  They’re just a big, scary force of nature that cannot be reasoned with, cannot be controlled, and can rarely be predicted.  Once a tornado is on the ground, you don’t really know where it’s going to hit or how hard it is going to hit.  A [...]

When it comes to drunk driving, there’s a constant battle to prevent DUI deaths.  Cops are always looking for drunks, hanging out by bars waiting for people to stagger to their cars and setting up checkpoints to otherwise annoy sober drivers.  Now, the law may be getting changed to make it easier to give a [...]

When Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old crypto-anarchist and University of Texas law student behind Defense Distributed, helped create the world’s first 3D-printed plastic handgun (called The Liberator), one of his more audacious ideas was to release the blueprints online to allow anyone with a computer and a 3D printer to make their own gun.  Turns out, [...]

Not content to rest on the success of the Kindle family of tablets and ereaders, Amazon has continued to look for ways to expand their offerings to the public.  Once a company gets a taste of being a device creator, they’re rarely satisfied with continuing to resell the stuff made by others.  Hence, Amazon is [...]

Sexual harassment is entirely too common, but it seems to be most prevalent in the United States military.  Even with volumes of laws on the books to prevent and discourage sexual harassment, you still hear about it happening.  It can destroy careers and turn workplaces hostile, and that’s if the victim is lucky.  You would [...]

KFC has embarked on a new campaign to sell its chicken to America by eliminating the necessity to actually pay attention while you eat.  Some call it a marketing stunt while others call it a food revolution, but KFC is calling it an important step in the evolution of the company, and you can try [...]