Though mobile phone numbers may actually be purchased from data brokers for digital marketing purposes, it is considered illegal to send text messages to those phone numbers. Why is this act of sending text messages to purchased phone numbers illegal?

In the United States, there is a regulatory commission called the FCC, The Federal Communications Commission, that promulgated a body of rules called the TCPA, the Telephone Consumers Protection Act. One of the fundamental rules that constitute the TCPA is that you cannot send text messages to consumers without obtaining their consent. The consent must also have been obtained prior to sending the text message since consent obtained after the act cannot really be termed consent in legal terms.

Therefore, while buying phone numbers cheaply from data brokers and then sending text messages to these numbers may seem like an easy way to advertise your brand to a wide audience, the fines you might have to pay for sending those text messages to those phone numbers can be in the millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. So, while it is actually legal to buy phone numbers from data brokers, it is completely illegal to send text messages to the purchased phone numbers if you haven’t obtained the consent of the subscribers who own those phone numbers.

However, if you can find a way of legally obtaining the consent of the consumers who own these phone numbers, you can send your brand’s text messages without any legal repercussions.

(Inspired by Tatango)