Revised Rule Under Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

Please be informed that a revised rule under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) went into effect on 10/16/13 that requires "prior express written consent" for text or voice messages sent to phones for solicitation purposes. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE LEGAL ADVICE, YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH YOUR LEGAL COUNSEL FOR SPECIFIC STEPS TO TAKE.

Please look at the content of your campaigns and determine whether you are sending messages for solicitation purposes. If you are sending text or voice messages for solicitation purposes, then your campaign must meet the "prior express written consent" standard. The revised rule defines "prior express written consent" as a signed written agreement that clearly and conspicuously discloses to the consumer that:

  • By signing the agreement, he or she authorizes the seller to deliver telemarketing messages to a designated phone number using an automatic telephone dialing system and
  • The consumer is not required to sign the agreement or agree to enter into it as a condition of purchasing any property, goods, or services.

The required signature may be obtained in compliance with the E-SIGN Act, including via an e-mail, website form, text message, telephone key press, or voice recording.

For those contacts you have collected using our Mobile Keyword, Online Sign-Up Page (OSP), eOSP, Facebook Widget, and other features that require your subscriber's voluntary action of sign-up, our system is designed to keep each subscriber action as written documentation. This documentation is useful only if you have fully disclosed your intent and purpose of your collection of their contact information and they agreed to allow you to send messages. However, for those contacts you have collected outside our system, you must be able to independently provide proof of written consent.

Penalties for violation may be severe and you have to take this change very seriously if you imported or manually added contacts.

AS A RESULT OF THIS CHANGE, IF YOU HAVE ANY IMPORTED OR MANUALLY ADDED CONTACTS IN YOUR DISTRIBUTION LIST, YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE IMPORT CERTIFICATION PROCESS AGAIN TO MEET MORE STRINGENT QUALIFICATION RULES EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SENT US YOUR IMPORT CONTACT IN THE PAST.

If you have an opt-in system outside of TextSpark, you should consult with your own legal team to create an opt-in system that provides the required disclosures under the revised TCPA rule, and captures a "prior express written consent" opt-in if your campaign contains solicitation content.

In addition, a declaratory ruling by the FCC confirmed that sending a single, final opt-out confirmation message does not violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. If you are an API user, please make sure that you do not send more than one message in response to a user’s STOP request. This means that STOP commands should be treated as STOP ALLs, unsubscribing users from ALL programs on a short code. Please discontinue the use of STOP Menus.

Furthermore, you are not allowed to send text or voice solicitation messages from 9PM to 8AM of recipients’ local time. You will see an error message during this time.

For any questions regarding TCPA revised rule, please contact our support team at +1 (866) 487-0003 or email support@textspark.com.