Rosolowski v. Guthy-Renker
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against Guthy for violation of Business and Professions Code section 17529.5, alleging, among other things, that Guthy sent them unsolicited commercial email advertisements purporting to be from "Proactive Special Offer," "Wen Hair Care," "Proactive Special Bonus Deal," "Wen Healthy Hair," "Wen by Chaz Dean," "Proactive Bonus Deal," "Proactive Bonus Gift," and "Proactive: Special Offer," which are not names or registered fictitious business names of existing entities, and are not traceable to Guthy via a WHOIS database. The court held that a header line in a commercial email advertisement does not misrepresent the identity of the sender merely because it does not identify the official name of the entity which sent the email, or merely because it does not identify the official name of the entity which sent the email, or merely because it does not identify an entity whose domain name is traceable from an online database, provided the sender's identity is readily ascertainable from the body of the email, as was the case here; the body of the emails made clear that free shipping or free gifts were contingent upon a purchase; a reasonable sender would not have reason to believe that commercial missives like these were "likely to deceive a recipient, acting reasonably under the circumstances, about a material fact regarding the contents or subject matter of the message." Accordingly, the court concluded no cause of action was stated for violation of section 17529.5, subdivision (a)(2) or (a)(3) and affirmed the judgment of dismissal.
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