Robotexts are text messages that are sent by an automated process to hundreds or thousands of phone numbers. They are at best spam, and at worst scams. Because there has been an increase in these texts, there have been changes to robotext regulations.
New Robotext Regulations
The FCC now requires cell phone providers to block texts that are “highly likely to be illegal.” This includes spam, phishing, and any other form of malicious messaging. These messages are annoying, and can be very dangerous, as they can lead to identity theft, unauthorized bank purchases, hacked accounts, and more.
The company Robokiller, has developed a paid service to combat scammers and spammers. They estimate that Americans alone received over 225 billion of these texts last year.
Many scammers text from phone numbers that are not in service in order to appear legitimate. The new rules should impair their ability to do this. Unfortunately it is still not in effect, but will be in the coming weeks.
What exactly are the rulings?
Mobile phone networks will soon be required to create a “reasonable” Do Not Originate list. This list will include numbers that aren’t allowed to send text messages. The list will include both unassigned phone numbers and phone numbers without texting capability.
Currently the minimum requirement is for numbers that are not yet assigned in North America. Since spammers have the ability to spoof or fake their number, blocking it doesn’t help because each text utilizes a different number.
Before this, the FCC had not really done much to combat spam texting, only issuing this citation in 2018.
Hopefully this action will take a lot of capability away from spammers. Sadly. they will likely find ways around this deterrence. For example, this order does not include texts that originate from email addresses, so in the future spammers may resort to that method.
It’s also possible that even though calls and texts are blocked, spammers will still leave a voicemail.
If you have specific questions about the changes to robotext regulation, or if our terminology isn’t clear, please use our contact form to send us a message. Thank you!