Q: Is there a limit to how many times you can be charged a penalty before your service faces being shut down? Would the shutdown be at the Brand/Campaign level?
A: The third strike content fine of $10K is very specific. The third time a content violation occurs and any subsequent violation, may be subject to the fine.
The $1,000 fine for program evasion is for each unique instance of the violation. If a company sends 5000 messages with snowshoeing intent, or purposely trying to evade filters, each instance (each message) would potentially incur the fine.
Outside of these scenarios, T-Mobile, or any MNO, has the right to shut down a sender at any time. Whether it’s one message, or 5000 messages.
Q: Are the penalty charges for Disallowed Content for the third and each subsequent content violations related to the same campaign, or are these imposed at the customer level for campaigns?
A: This is a third-strike policy. For each of the third and any subsequent notification of a content violation involving the same content provider, the content fine of $10K fine may be levied at the campaign level or at the brand level.
Q: Is there a point services would be terminated based on penalties incurred?
A: It is not clear who will be impacted by the penalties. This will be at the discretion of T-Mobile. T-Mobile has always been focused on who sent the message, so, if it’s a Brand representative, using the customer’s platform to send the message, it may be that the Brand will be impacted.
The ASP might also be impacted, if there is a question on how the ASP let these messages go out in the first place. For example, if the ASP has 5 clients who use their platform to send out unwanted messages, then the ASP might be held accountable for why so many of their customers are being allowed to send out unwanted content.
Q: Can you please confirm whether the fines for 10DLC would come to the customer, or do they go to the brand directly?
A: Whomever has the direct relationship with Sinch will receive the fine. It is then up to that customer whether or not they pass on the fine to their end customer.
Q: Have there been any fines issued thus far?
A: I don’t believe T-Mobile has started fining anyone yet, but fines may be introduced as soon as March 2022.
Q: Are T-Mobile’s fines related to federal regulations?
A: No, these are T-Mobile specific fines and are not tied to TCPA or CTIA related audits.
