Today carriers us industry-leading spam containment vendors and monitors consumer complaints. These practices promote a sustainable model for healthy commercial texting, which is good for both consumers and message senders.
Consumer complaints
Major operators in North America support consumer-driven spam controls.
Their mobile subscribers can forward unwanted or unconsented text messages to a dedicated short code, 7726 (it spells “SPAM” on a standard keypad).
Carriers monitor consumer complaints sent to this service for numbers on the network.
If multiple complaints are received for a sender, then a notification is sent to the message sender that includes the source phone number, destination phone number, timestamp, and original message ID that was given to the message sender upon message submission.
Upon receipt, the service provider must provide proof of TCPA compliant opt-in for those specific messages.
They must also provide an overview of the messaging campaign and its opt-in process that the unwanted message was a part of.
If a large amount of unwanted or unconsented messages are reported on a source phone number, then that number may have 'sending rights' immediately suspended while opt-in is being confirmed.
Opt-out rate
Carriers track the opt-out rate on every source phone number that is active on their network.
The daily opt-out rate on a phone number is defined as the total number of unique consumer phone numbers divided by the unique opted-out consumers that were sent messages within a 24-hour period.
If the daily opt-out rate on a sending phone number is 5% or greater, then the account is flagged for monitoring.
An opt-out rate of 10% or greater on a sending phone number may result in immediate suspension of services.
Real-time content analysis
Real-time analysis is used by carriers to identify if a message falls outside of the code of conduct or best practices.