Prohibited Messaging Provider Behavior

The following traits are considered by the carriers to be suspicious and indicative of spam or fraudulent traffic. As such, campaigns found to be doing the following are not complying with best practices guidelines:

1. Snowshoeing - utilizing a large block of numbers to spread high-velocity traffic among them to avoid carrier spam filters and/or throughput restrictions.
2. Ignoring or Avoiding Opt-Outs - any attempts to make it difficult for an end-user to opt out run the risk of noncompliance with the FCC TCPA, as are instances of ignoring opt-out attempts made in a reasonable manner.
3. URL Cycling, Redirects and Forwarding - campaigns utilizing strange or misleading URL behavior to manipulate end-user consent, attention or capture information.
4. Unpublished Contact Numbers - unless the owner of the number is unambiguously identified in the text message.
5. Number Cycling - dropping blocks of numbers which have been burned by the carriers and replacing with fresh numbers to simply repeat the process.
6. Running or Enabling Prohibited Use Cases - resellers are responsible for vetting and preventing prohibited use cases on their account.
7. Sharing, Selling or Renting Consent or any other collected information to or with third parties.
8. Grey Routes for A2P - “Grey Routes” not authorized to send non-consumer (business, A2P) messages cannot be used for those purposes.
9. Intentional Filter Evasion - providing mechanisms intended to assist messages in evading anti-SPAM controls regardless of use-case is not permitted.
10. Dynamic Routing - sender codes and numbers should have a single route by which they deliver messages to destination end-users. These routes should not change dynamically to avoid SPAM controls.
11. Shared Codes - a code of any type should be dedicated to one content provider only.
12. Cannabis/CBD Content - any messages promoting cannabis or CBD are prohibited in the United States. This includes messages relating to the marketing or sale of cannabis or CBD products, regardless of whether those messages explicitly contain cannabis terminology, images or links to cannabis-related websites. Sending content of this nature is prohibited by the carriers and violates our AUP.
13. Prescription Drugs not Federally Approved - As with CBD and cannabis content, content referencing any prescription drugs that are not approved at the federal level, such as GLP-1 pharmaceuticals, is disallowed.

Red Flags

Some of the characteristics listed below may be innocuous when viewed as isolated incidents, and could occur regardless whether a campaign is absolutely compliant. However, if a messaging program is exhibiting certain characteristics consistently and/or repeatedly, this may indicate noncompliance and is effectively a red flag to the carriers. Convey customers should look out for these red flags as well to proactively monitor customer traffic and use-cases in advance of carrier complaint.

• Upset inbound consumer messages such as expletives, legal threats, confusion about message source or content.
• Opt-out keyword rates greater than 0.5% including colloquial opt-out requests (e.g. “leave me alone,” “I told you not to contact me,”) and vulgarities.
• Complaints of message blocking. Good traffic absolutely gets blocked incorrectly, but customers whose traffic constantly gets blocked may not be exercising full compliance.
• Consistent use of high-risk marketing rather than other campaign types may indicate the provider caters to spammers.
• Regular requests to turn over number inventory due to numbers being “burnt” by carrier blocks.