How Red Tape Killed My Ability to Text My Clients

On the ongoing 10DLC regulatory saga

Some of you may know this already, but I’m technically a private attorney. I opened a barebones solo practice about 6 years ago after years of chronic unemployment, paid the $40 business license fee, solely to have something to fill my increasingly wide resume gap. At first. Then I figured that if I have a law practice on paper, I might as well pick up a few public defense contracts while I’m at it. That decision snowballed fortuitously.

I needed a separate business phone number, but it never made sense for me to buy a whole new separate device, and so Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) was and remains the obvious solution. It’s just a full-service app that lives inside your phone, and uses the internet instead of a carrier’s telephony network.

As opposed to a traditional desk work phone, VoIP also allowed me to easily text clients, which was extremely useful for such an elusive demographic. Some clients felt special because they assumed the texting meant I had given them exclusive access via my personal cell which, in a way, was true. Fast forward to today, where my texting privileges have been snatched away from me and I’ve wasted hours fruitlessly trying to get them back.

Let me start by acknowledging that texting spam has gotten insane. I once had to temporarily port phone numbers to one previously used by a woman named Linda, and within a day I had gotten almost a hundred text messages from various businesses and scams directed to her personally. This happened because unlike manually texting each and every recipient from a candybar T9 phone, VoIP carriers used Application-to-Person (A2P) infrastructure which can be very easily scaled up to insane degrees.

A2P has been around since the beginning — the very first text was sent from a computer in 1992 because mobile phones back then lacked a text input interface. Combined with the general cumbersome nature of A2P back in the day, spam was also kept in check by carriers imposing a one-text-per-second throughput limit on each number. In 2006, carriers introduced “short code” numbers (5 or 6 digit phone numbers, instead of the traditional 10 digits) specifically intended for A2P use, which allowed 100-messages-per-second. These short codes were way more expensive but businesses loved the additional throughput and carriers could keep spam on a short leash. Everyone was happy!

But as A2P tools got more sophisticated, the texting zone got flooded from a tsunami of 10-digit numbers held and recycled by unknown actors (read: scammers). So in a bid to fix all this, carriers are now requiring all phone numbers that use A2P to first comply with what’s known as 10DLC (10-digit long code) regulations before they can send any texts.

The regulations require you to register your “brand” with The Campaign Registry (TCR), a private company that does a basic background check to ensure you are real. Then you have to register your texting “campaign” where you have to provide a fuckton of information, such as what you’re using texting for, how you plan on getting consent from customers (MESSAGE AND DATE RATES MAY APPLY), how they can opt-out, and sample messages you plan on sending.

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I put “brand” and “campaign” in quotes because those are verbatim inescapable terms — those words alone should tell you everything you need to know. The system inherently assumes that every entity using A2P texting is a marketing machine with an “audience” that must be reassured.

For most businesses, these requirements make a lot of sense to me. A dental office might have “campaigns” for appointment reminders, follow-ups, and maybe seasonal promotions. A retail store could have “campaigns” for sales alerts, shipping notifications, or customer service. All that makes sense!

But they’re absolutely inane for a solo practitioner like myself. My texting “campaigns” are basically…just talking to my clients. There’s no mass marketing, no automated reminders, no fancy promotional strategies. It’s just me, typing out messages one by one, like a normal human being. Unless I want to give up texting altogether, I can’t opt out of this system.

It’s obvious that this system was not built with businesses like mine in mind. In fact, when 10DLC kicked in for my carrier (Vonage at the time), I was still able to receive texts but my carrier just turned off my ability to send texts without notifying me. I could still type texts, hit send, and see the text I “sent” in the message thread, but secretly all of my replies got binned. I had absolutely no idea until several attorneys and investigators I worked with got annoyed that I was ignoring their texts.

Now, maybe I could’ve fixed it by just jumping through 10DLC’s bureaucratic hoops? Nope! They had imposed these regulations before they figured out how to let sole proprietors like myself to register. For several months, Vonage only let you register if you provide articles of incorporation for your business, which mine did not have!

Ok ok ok, they finally got their shit straight and now registering should be a breeze, right? NOOOOOO. I’ve now had my “campaign” application rejected four times so far by Zoom, my current provider, each time for inane and arbitrary reasons.

One of their requirements is that I needed to have a publicly accessible “brand” website, where I would also host my privacy policy. I’ve never had a website for my practice, because I’ve never needed one. 100% of my clients are court-appointed indigent criminal defendants. I have never sought out nor would I ever accept any private clients. But whatever, you need me to make a website, I’ll make a website, here’s a website. I triple-checked Zoom’s 10DLC checklist and slapped together the minimum necessary — an otherwise blank homepage with nothing on there except my firm name, and this:

Privacy Policy

Our firm collects phone numbers solely for communications related to cases involving clients and other relevant parties. This includes reminders for court dates, updates on case statuses, and coordination of legal matters. We do not sell, share, or use phone numbers for promotional, marketing, or third-party purposes. By providing your phone number, you agree to receive case-related text messages from our firm. Standard messaging and data rates may apply. You can opt out of receiving messages at any time by replying with the word STOP.

Zoom wasn’t sated, rejecting my “campaign”:

The privacy policy as per 10DLC required requirements is valid. Upon reviewing, we found the brand website is lacking some details. For example, what is the website for? You need an official website where your clients can check what your business for. Having your own official website will help your clients review what they need and for public presence. Please make changes. Please correct and resubmit.

I lost it.

They actually started by saying the privacy policy itself was fine, and so I had absolutely no idea what they wanted from me. I tried to explain again that I’m a contracted public defender, not a company. That my only business relationship is with the courthouses that appoint me to cases, not random schmoes who google my name. That I do not have a business model that requires a public-facing “brand” website, nor was I comfortable just fabricating marketing materials for fictitious clients. Did they want pictures? A bio? Animations? A slideshow of client testimonials smiling in their prison scrubs?

It was an impassioned and detailed plea, imploring whatever vestiges of rationality and humanity remained within their backroom husks. To which a supervisor replied with:

An online presence, particularly through social media and your website, gives customers a place to leave feedback or engage with your brand. You can leverage this feedback to improve your SMS campaigns, addressing concerns or tweaking offers based on customer input.

Having a strong online presence helps establish credibility. If customers see your business or brand consistently active on social media, your website, and other digital platforms, they’re more likely to trust your SMS campaigns. A business that is easily identifiable online can reassure recipients that the message is legitimate and not spam.

An online presence allows you to gather data about your audience's behaviors, preferences, and demographics. By understanding this, you can create highly targeted and personalized SMS campaigns. For example, you can segment your customers based on their interactions with your website or social media, ensuring that the messages sent to them are relevant and timely.

Oh for fuck’s sake, AI slop is infecting everything. I had no choice but to go full bore with malicious compliance and updated my website accordingly:

Welcome to the 10DLC compliance bonanza! Regulatory compliance is our top priority at our law firm — so much so that we’ve created this web page solely to satisfy Zoom's ever-mystifying set of arbitrary demands. I've been told by their cast of drooling idiots that my ability to text my own court-appointed clients depends on me proving an “online presence”. Because obviously my clients, most of which are incarcerated, will naturally need to google me before daring to answer a text about their case.

So here it is, my golden ticket to SMS freedom. It contains the required no-brainer disclosures (Yes, we text about cases. No, we don’t sell numbers. Shocking!) and the all-important STOP to opt out (though your court date remains whether you read my texts or not). If this is still not fucking good enough for the imbeciles at Zoom, I assume the next step will be to upload a picture of myself holding today's newspaper while solemnly swearing that I am not a crypto scam.

To whoever at Zoom is reviewing this: Congratulations! You fucking won! You've gotten your stupid fucking pointless compliance page and incinerated hours of my limited time on this planet to cover for the fact that you're making shit up as you go along! Nice.

We’ll see if this works. [Update: It did!]

For now, I still can’t text. Marcel if you’re still getting this, please call me back ASAP. We have a bench warrant hearing next Wednesday on the 26th that you cannot miss. Don’t fuck this up again!