An alternative to SMS must exist where the service needs to reach the consumer
The requirementstatement
A programme must not make receiving text messages the only way to sign up or to be served, with no other channel offered.
- Severityseverity
- BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- signup flow alternatives
- Where it liveslayer
- Consent flowCONSENT_FLOW
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · crawlCRAWL
- Needs your live site or policy page fetched and read. Ekas crawls it the way a reviewer would.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the websiteTERMINAL_WEBSITE
- The fix lives on your site. No amount of rewording the form clears it.
- Who requires itauthorities
- AWSFCCTwilio
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies when the use case is NOT TWO_FACTOR_AUTH, SECURITY_ALERT and FRAUD_ALERT.
Why this rule existsrationale
A consumer who must accept texts because the confirmation, the code or the receipt arrives no other way has not chosen SMS — they have chosen the service. The defect is invisible to the usual checks because there is often no consent control to mark optional: the coercion lives in the product design rather than in the form, and the brand reads their own flow as "we just text people their booking".
How to fix itremediation
Offer at least one non-SMS route to the same outcome — email the confirmation, show it on screen, or let the customer pick a channel — and say so where the number is collected. Done when a customer who never gives a mobile number can still complete the signup and receive whatever the text would have carried.
Common mistakespitfalls
- Offering an alternative that is worse on purpose ("email delivery may take up to 5 days") is the same coercion with a fig leaf, and reads that way to a reviewer.
- A 2FA or fraud-alert programme genuinely has no alternative channel — those use cases are excluded from this rule rather than argued out of it.
Rules you will hit next
Other consent flow rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
CON-008The live CTA and the declared message flow must say the same thingBlockingBLOCKINGCON-010The three subscriber-management attributes must be declared trueBlockingBLOCKINGCON-013Subscriber attributes must agree with the message bodies suppliedBlockingBLOCKINGCON-023Evidence URLs must resolve without a loginBlockingBLOCKINGCON-024The opt-in URL must serve a certificate that verifiesBlockingBLOCKINGCON-027The opt-in URL must land on a page that carries the opt-inBlockingBLOCKING
CON-072 is one of 101 consent flow rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.