AppDivaQ: Is your platform FTC (USA) compliant?
The current laws in regards to texting in the US are as such:
Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)
Under the TCPA, businesses may not send messages to consumers without their consent. Even if an individual provides their phone number or has a long-standing relationship with the business, the company cannot text the individual if they have not granted written consent.
Do you have safeguard in place to comply with this?
I can tell you from the experience of a friend who decided to use text messaging to market his business. Long story short, he got into serious trouble when some of the recipients complained and a few came after him legally. Between the costs he had to endure to deal with the legal issues and fines. It ruined him.
I've been on the receiving end of unsolicited sales texts and had to install Robokiller to my phone to block them.
Would interested in hearing what protocols you have in place.
Thank you
Thanks for this comment. Are you aware if other providers (e.g. Twilio) offer this sort of precaution, or does the responsibility lay with business owner?
I found this from Twillio:
https://www.twilio.com/guidelines/us/sms
I think it's important to keep in mind, that most providers will go as far as they need to in order to keep their platform legally safe. In other words, they will not take responsibility for an individual using their platform in non compliance of the law. Sort of like email spamming. Or how people upload copyrighted material to Youtube.
It's also why cell providers are now adding auto spam blocking of callers and text to their existing services. Which makes me wonder how effective would this kind of marketing be anyway? With blockers in place the majority of your lists most likely won't see your offer anyway.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I'm saying make sure you are only texting to those who have opted in to receive your messages.
Hello,
This is an excellent point.
To be honest, we currently do no have these legal safeguards in place at this time. Based on our research, we did not any such features being offered by our competitors either.
I have already passed this along to our internal team. We will definitely incorporating this in our Roadmap and prioritize ensuring that Textnock is regulation compliant.
Many, many, many thanks for your input. It will help us to make Textnock better for everyone.
I appreciate your candor and replying. A good place to research is on the Twilio site for information on various country requirements.
https://www.twilio.com/guidelines/sms
It's not extremely detailed but does illustrate the point of knowing what's allowable and what isn't.
Thank you for replying.
Thanks for highlighting this nobody needs that sort of hassle and cost for outreach tools - karma credit to you sir!
Thanks and you're welcome!
If we're going to shamlessly plug credit monitoring sites, you should check out wallet nerd!
@SapphireWolf--aka--th3doorMATT
He's not promoting credit sites. I believe you are referring to "Credit Karma" his note was referring to giving me "karma credit" meaning whatever you do good or bad that will come back to you in some way. In this case he is thanking me for giving him this info. So positive karma. Hope that clears it up.
Mizra,
A reference point of a competitor that has these TCPA messages built into their product is this one - Textdeliver. Check them out as a reference - https://textdeliver.com/
Hello Idealz,
We are again grateful for your input.
We will definitely check out Textdeliver.
Appreciate you sharing this to help make Textnock better.
Thanks