PhoneBurner’s Acceptable Use Policy for SMS Messaging

Similar to calling, your SMS messages need to adhere to strict guidelines to ensure you aren’t in breach of trust and industry compliance requirements. It can be difficult to know what all the rules and regulations are, so our team has put together this acceptable use policy to help guide you. 

Below, we’ll show you what message types and campaigns you should avoid, what behaviors are prohibited with PhoneBurner, and what content we do not allow you to send. 

Sending Unsolicited SMS Messages

Your SMS recipients must explicitly opt in to receive messages from you. Further, your opt in process must clearly explain to your customers that they consent to receive SMS messages from you after opting in. 

At any point in time, PhoneBurner reserves the right to request proof from you that your recipients have opted in to receive SMS messages. 

The following do not qualify as valid opt ins:

• Obtaining a recipient’s phone number from a different purpose other than SMS message consent, such as validating payments, verifying personal data, etc.
• Purchasing, borrowing, renting, or obtaining a recipient’s phone number from a third party
• Taking recipients who opt in for transactional messages, like delivery notifications, and subscribing them to recurring SMS messages

Sending Messages That Contain Inappropriate Content

The following types of content are explicitly prohibited in SMS messages sent through PhoneBurner:

• Sexual or pornographic
• Abuse and harassment
• Firearms
• Alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs, including cannabis
• Loans, loan forgiveness, credit repair, debt collection, or taxes
• Gambling
• Investment opportunities
• Unsolicited real estate inquiries
• Multi-level marketing
• Persistent receiving or sending of one time pass-codes from, or on behalf of, other service providers

Ignoring Unsubscribe Requests

If a recipient opts out or unsubscribes from you by sending stop words like “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE,” you must honor their choice. From the point of receipt, you have 24 hours to remove the recipient from your SMS message lists. 

Sending a High Frequency of Messages to a Recipient

You are prohibited from sending more than 10 messages to any single recipient in a 24 hour time period, unless the following is met:

• Recipients have engaged in two-way communication via SMS
• Recipients have explicitly opted in to receive frequent messages 

Misrepresenting Your Identity— AKA Spoofing

You must always represent or identify yourself as your legitimate self or business at all times. You may not use SMS messages or a recipient’s phone number in a way that would mislead them into believing you are not yourself or a representative of your business.

Engaging in Fraud or Phishing For Information

You can never send messages with fraudulent information or phishing attempts in order to harvest confidential information from a recipient.

Additional Regulations

In addition to the restrictions above, PhoneBurner customers must also adhere to the following laws, regulations, and recommendations:

CAN-SPAM (United States)

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.

Read the full law here.

CASL (Canada)

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 be complied with when sending CEMs to or from computer systems in Canada.

Read the full regulation here.

CTIA Messaging Principles

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.

If you violate these guidelines or otherwise breach PhoneBurner’s Terms of Service (ToS), our team reserves the right to suspend or close your account. 

The guidelines listed in this post neither replace nor cover all prohibited activities as stated in the PhoneBurner Terms of Service (ToS).