The FCC permits companies to contact their active customers for up to 18 months (section 10) from the date of the customer’s last purchase, rental or lease of the company’s goods or services, or a financial transaction between the customer and the company.  You are allowed to initiate one outbound call or text to a customer that has an Established Business Relationship (page 7) with your company, defined as engaging in a payment, sales transaction or shipment sometime in the past 18 months.  When composing this first unsolicited outbound text, you must give them the option to Unsubscribe from the service by including the phrase "Reply STOP to end."

Before using the iViP Messenger to communicate with specific groups of contacts in your Phonebook, there are a few rules that must be followed in order to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 - (PDF permalink).

Guidelines for Group Sends

1)  Whenever you send a text to multiple contacts at the same time (called a "Group Send"), you must:

A)  Identify your company (and also yourself) so that your existing customers will easily recognize who the text is from

B)  Conclude your text with the phrase "Reply STOP to end" - this opt-out phrase is required by law, especially when contacting your customers through iViP Mobile for the first time.  If your customers do reply with "STOP" or any related phrase, they will be automatically deleted (Unsubscribed) from your Phonebook.

2)  Make Proper Introductions First:  Always use the [1st] or [Full] Name Merge Field buttons so that each contact's first (or first & last) name will be merged into the outbound text.  This will make your text more personal, like it was specifically sent from you to your customer.

3)  Some organizations may want to encourage their active customers to contact them from now on via text.  If you would like to use the Messenger as your preferred business communication tool, then include this suggestion in your first introductory text.  Tell your customers that they can use this convenient number from now on to text in their order, schedule service, confirm appointments, or simply ask a customer service question.

Warning:  SPAM (sending unsolicited messages to people you don't know) is illegal. Attempting to send messages to people who have asked to be removed (have electronically unsubscribed) from iViP's texting service is also illegal.  Automated filters will detect replies from unhappy recipients of unwanted texts.  If iViP Mobile discovers that you are using the Instant Messenger to spam random Mobile #'s (or your own customers) with unsolicited texts, your account will be immediately turned off.