SMS consent needs its own control and its own sentence
The requirementstatement
Messaging consent must not share a control or a sentence with email or phone-call consent.
- 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
- opt-in surface control set; consent disclosure text
- 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
- TelnyxTwilioTextUsInfobipBirdSakariKlaviyo
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies when consent was collected by web form, checkout, account settings, third party and point of sale.
Why this rule existsrationale
One box reading "yes, contact me by email and text" produces a record that cannot show which channel the consumer wanted, and the honest answer is usually email — that is the one they were thinking about. Klaviyo warns against collecting both on one surface for the same reason: the combined control converts better precisely because it captures people who did not decide.
How to fix itremediation
Split into two controls with two sentences: one for email, one for text. The SMS sentence carries the SMS disclosures; the email one does not need them. Done when a consumer can take the newsletter and decline the texts in one submission.
A compliant exampleexample
☐ Email me Acme Coffee news. ☐ Text me Acme Coffee offers. Msg frequency varies. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe, HELP for help.
Common mistakespitfalls
- Two checkboxes sharing one sentence above them is the same defect with extra steps — each control needs wording of its own that names its channel.
Notesnotes
Distinct from CON-BOX-BUNDLED, which is about bundling with terms acceptance. Here both halves are genuine consents and the defect is that they are one act. WEB-100 states the same rule for a QR landing page, and CON-133 the wording half.
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-134 is one of 101 consent flow rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.