Let’s keep text messaging services free of spam

Recently, we told you about the changes that Verizon is making to help you fight robocalls. Now, we want to tell you about what we are doing to keep you safe from spam text messages.

We want you to know that Verizon’s got your back: as with robocallers, we have no sympathy for those who send spam texts. We want to make sure that our customers get only the text messages they want to get. Period. End of story. 

We don’t want you bombarded by millions of unwanted and bothersome texts, some of which include opportunities for the bad guys to steal your data and commit fraud. In other words, we want texting to remain a great and trusted way to stay connected with your family, friends, and other trusted contacts -- not like the phone calls you refuse to answer or the emails you delete before opening. That’s why we’re taking steps to protect you.

Our goal has been to improve the customer experience, deploy new safeguards against spam, and work to ensure that text messaging, going forward, does not become what robocalls are today. We want you to continue to stay in control of who texts you – whether it’s a pet store sending out coupons, your child’s school reminding you about sports practice, or community or political groups asking you to join them. You should give your consent before they text you. And they should stop texting you when you tell them to stop. That’s the way it works today, it’s straightforward and it’s only right. The basic idea is that you should get all of the messages that you want – and it should be easy to avoid the ones you don’t.

Obtaining consent is consistent with federal law and long-established best practices, and ensures that text messaging remains a trusted service for senders and recipients alike. We get that even some legitimate organizations would rather avoid the time and effort of getting your consent before sending out millions of messages, but without fundamental protections in place, texting will inevitably be overtaken by spam – an outcome we all want to avoid.

We are also following through on our pledge to offer Pre-K and K-12 schools a free text messaging notification service for schools, teachers, parents, and students. We know how important this service is to our customers. As companies offering these services move onto our new platform, they can continue to offer this free service, and there’s no reason for them to stop.

We’re confident that our recent network enhancements will help you block texts that you really don’t want to receive. Working with others in the text message ecosystem, we can all help deliver a great customer experience, one that allows free and open dialogue without the noise (and dangers) that no one desires. Join us and others in the industry to help make texting spam-free for customers. #NoSpamTexts

For related media inquiries, please contact Richard.j.young@verizon.com