SMS recipients must have explicitly opted in to receiving messages from you. The opt in process must be clearly explained to customers in a manner in which the recipient was aware they would receive SMS messages.
The following do not qualify as valid opt ins:
Collecting the recipient's phone number for another purpose (such as for validating payments) but then sending messages to that recipient
Purchasing, borrowing, renting, or otherwise obtaining the recipient's phone number or a lead list from a third party
Having the customer opt in for a transactional message (such as message on delivery of a package) and then subscribing them to a recurring campaign
Phone plus reserves the right to request proof of opt in at any time.
The following types of content are explicitly prohibited:
Sexual or pornographic
Considered abusive or harassing
Firearms (including fireworks)
Alcohol, tobacco, pharma or illegal drugs
Loans, loan forgiveness, credit repair, debt collection or tax related content
Gambling
Investment opportunities
Unsolicited real estate enquiries such as WeBuyHomes
Multilevel marketing
Persistent receiving or sending of one time pass-codes from or on behalf of other service providers.
Recipients may choose to unsubscribe from any further messages from you by sending stop words such as STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE. These messages will be delivered to you automatically via a webhook. Upon receipt, you have up to 24 hours to remove the recipient from your list.
You may not send more than 10 messages to a recipient in any 24 hour period unless the following conditions are met:
The recipient has engaged in two-way communication over SMS such as for a chat feature
The customer has explicitly opted in to receiving frequent messages
You may not represent or identify yourself as another individual or business in any way. More specifically, you may not use the message body or the phone number in a way that would lead the recipient to believe you are another individual or business.
Sending messages with fraudulent information or phishing to get confidential information from a recipient is explicitly prohibited.
In addition to the restrictions above, Phone plus customers must adhere to the following laws, regulations and recommendations:
The Controlling the
Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (“CAN-SPAM”) is a federal law regulating
the transmission of commercial email messages and Internet-to-phone SMS commercial messages to addresses
that reference Internet domains.
Canada’s CASL was enacted to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act (“CASL”), is a Canadian federal law regulating the sending of “commercial electronic messages” or “CEMs”. A CEM includes any email message, text/SMS message or other electronic message that is sent to an electronic address and that has as even one of its purposes to encourage participation in a commercial activity. CASL applies to any CEM sent to or from a computer system located in Canada. CASL requires prior consent to send a CEM and requires that all CEMs meet prescribed form and content requirements. CASL is generally regarded as one of the most stringent anti-spam regimes in the world. Its specific and prescriptive requirements should be carefully considered and must complied with when sending CEMs to or from computer systems in Canada.
CTIA’s Messaging Principles and Best Practices
offers a set of recommendations developed with wireless messaging ecosystem stakeholders to support a
robust and dynamic wireless messaging community.