Oh well. Wenner Media‘s respite from lawsuits didn’t last very long.
A class action lawsuit has just been filed against the publisher of Us Weekly, Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal for aggressive marketing. According to the complaint, filed on Tuesday in Illinois District Court, Wenner Media and Consumer Benefit Services is being sued for sending text messages to cell phones of consumers throughout the nation offering vouchers for magazine subscriptions.
The proposed class action lead by an Indiana woman named Karen Schrock claims the SMS messages sent violated section 227 of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which restricts the use of automatic dialing systems to cell phones.
Damages are said to be a minimum of $500 per violation, and the class action as a whole claims that the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.
In the past couple of years, Wenner has been fighting for its aggressive promotional and merchandise campaigns. This year, the company has been somewhat lucky, getting a federal court to dismiss a challenge by dozens of indie rock bands who objected to a Rolling Stone spread next to an advertisement for cigarettes, and also recently settling a lawsuit targeting the company’s use of magazine covers on t-shirts and tote bags. Now the company’s lawyers will get back to court.
