All of our clients have a legal obligation to ensure that their messaging content is compliant with applicable state and federal laws, including the requirements of the TCPA and guideless established by the CTIA. While the sender of the message is ultimately responsible for compliance, individual carriers also play a role in mitigating SPAM and regulating certain types of messaging that is delivered via mass text.
For this reason, messaging campaigns are subject to monitoring and approval. While we cannot possibly review all of the messages our customers send, if we are given bona fide reasons to investigate a customer’s compliance with applicable law (and thus the terms of our contract), we reserve the right to suspend and/or remove an account for non-compliance as outlined in our Terms and Conditions.
Compliance is a big deal in the world of text marketing. Here's a step-by-step guide. We highly recommend reading it consulting with your own legal counsel before sending any campaigns. In addition to providing clear and conspicuous disclosure and obtaining express written consent in accordance with the TCPA, below are additional items to note from the CTIA and mobile carriers about types of messages that can be sent.
CTIA Guidelines
The CTIA calls out the following categories of messages that cannot be delivered via text for both legal and ethical reasons. They also note that it’s very important the content that is sent be appropriate for the audience that it is being delivered to.
Any content related to SHAFT (sex, hate, alcohol, firearms or tobacco) which may include:
Depictions or endorsements of violence
Adult or otherwise inappropriate content
Profanity
Hate/discriminatory speech
Endorsement of illegal or illicit drugs (such as fireworks, prescription drugs, cannabis, and CBD)
Carrier SPAM Mitigation
In June 2016, AT&T released an amendment to their SPAM mitigation policy which prohibits the sending of High Risk Financial offers via shared short codes (which were discontinued in 2021). The restricted types of messaging include:
Loan origination and matching
Payday loans
Short-term loans
Auto loans
Mortgage loans
Student loans
Debt consolidation and reduction
Investment opportunities
Credit repair programs
Tax relief programs
Deceptive work from home programs
The amendment allows for the use of a dedicated short code approved for a specific use case. A member of our team would be happy to discuss the process involved in obtaining a dedicated short code or using our long code program if your offers/business fall into this category. Click on the blue and white chat bubble to start a conversation or book a demo to start the conversation.