About a year ago I submitted an application to RingCentral for SMS access for my small civil engineering business. Like others who would like to avail themselves of this service, we do not market via SMS and we do not send unsolicited messages to anyone. We also do not sell our contacts’ information to third parties or text people who do not want to be texted. We just want to stop using our personal phones to text clients and employees when we have a phone system we should be able to use for it. I can send our employees texts and clients by dialing from my desk phone, but that is incredibly inconvenient when I should be able to just type and send them from my computer. For users like me, what is the difference between using the dial pad on my phone or the RC app for text messages? My SMS application was rejected because our website was down for a few weeks while it was being updated. But even if it had been up, we did not have the appropriate privacy policies or terms & conditions posted, so it would have been rejected anyway.
Which brings me to my question: Why does RingCentral not provide successful examples of SMS privacy policy and terms & conditions documents for their users to use as a starting point for their own policies? I am suggesting that you provide ACTUAL POLICY DOCUMENTS with the names and identifying information removed. Obviously, you would need to get the consent of the businesses that were successful, but most small business owners are happy to help others avoid problems if they can, and I cannot think of any reasonable objection I might have to posting what is already a PUBLIC document anyway. If nothing else, maybe RC could provide links to successful policies that are posted on their customers’ websites.
This seems like a no-brainer for RC if they want happy clients and less headaches for their technical people. This would give RC customers a solid foundation for their policies and a more complete understanding of what it takes to get accepted. There is a big difference between explaining to someone what they are supposed to include in their policy and providing a real-world working example that was accepted by the governing authorities. RC should probably post different examples for those engaged in email marketing and those who only use SMS conversationally, like my company. There should also be examples from states that pile additional regulations on to the federal requirements, such as California. This would go a very long way to solving many of the problems that RC customers have with registering for SMS and would free up customer support staff for other purposes.
If RC has posted real-world approved examples of policy documents somewhere, please let me know where they are. If they have not, why not? It is not like RC would be giving legal advice or providing legal services. These would be examples for completeness only, not specific legal advice for a particular business. RC could make those who want access to these examples agree that they are not legal advice and that these are simply to provide an understanding of the policies and wording that are typically accepted.