A programme in another language still owes the English keyword

The requirementstatement

A programme messaging in a language other than English must honour STOP in that language, and must not return an error to the English keyword.

Severityseverity: HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
When it bitesphase: After you are livepostFalls due once you are sending: STOP handling, quiet hours, suppression, record retention.
What is checkedobject: per-locale keyword table
Where it liveslayer: OperationalOPERATIONAL
How Ekas settles itdetectability: Post-submissionUNDETECTABLE_PRE_SUBMISSION; The subject does not exist yet at submission time: a reply window, an expiring PIN, a queue position. Reported with its deadline.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: CTIAMMA
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

A Spanish-language programme whose handler only knows English leaves its subscribers with no working opt-out at all, which is the worst version of this failure. The mirror case is just as real: handsets, carriers and habit mean somebody will send STOP even to a Spanish programme, and answering that with an error is the defect the previous rule describes.

How to fix itremediation

Add the local-language revocation words to the keyword table alongside the English set rather than instead of it, and keep the confirmation in the language the consumer wrote in. Done when both ALTO and STOP suppress on the same programme.

A compliant exampleexample

Keyword table for a Spanish programme: STOP, ALTO, PARAR, CANCELAR, plus the standard English set.

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

Do both ALTO and STOP suppress on the same programme?

1Send the local-language revocation word and the English one to the same programme.
2Confirm adding a locale did not replace the default keyword set — that is how most platforms model it.
3Check the confirmation comes back in the language the consumer wrote in.

What wrong looks like: A Spanish-language programme whose handler only knows English leaves its subscribers with no working opt-out at all — and a subscriber who sends the English keyword out of habit gets an error.

Notesnotes

Only the sending platform holds the keyword table. What the user has to confirm is that adding a locale did not replace the default set, which is how most platforms model it.

Rules you will hit next

Other operational rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

OPS-035The mandatory keywords must work over MMS tooHighHIGH OPS-044Suppression is brand-wide, not per numberHighHIGH OPS-047A state may give you less time than the federal limitHighHIGH OPS-052Silence after a scope question revokes everythingHighHIGH OPS-053A STOP answering a scope question must not be answered with anotherHighHIGH OPS-054Revoking against an exempt message stops everything else tooHighHIGH

All operational rules

OPS-034 is one of 139 operational rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.