Consent is the foundation of a messaging programme. Without it, everything downstream is fragile: messages get filtered, numbers get blocked, and campaigns get rejected. With it, the rest is straightforward.
Consent is permission from a person to message them on a specific number, for a specific kind of message. It should be given actively, it should be recorded, and it should be possible for the person to withdraw it.
- Active — the person did something, such as ticking a box, texting a keyword, or filling in a form. A pre-ticked box is not active consent.
- Specific — they agreed to messages of the kind you are sending. Agreeing to order updates is not agreeing to marketing.
- Recorded — you can say when, how and what they agreed to. If you cannot show it, you effectively do not have it.
- Withdrawable — opting out works immediately and without friction.
Someone texts a keyword to your number. Furcata recognises a set of subscribe keywords — START, SUBSCRIBE, OPTIN, UNSTOP, JOIN and SIGNUP — and treats them as a request to be subscribed.
A form on your site collects a number and an explicit agreement. Record the agreement alongside the number, and say plainly what the person is signing up for and how often they will hear from you.
Consent given verbally is still consent, but it is the hardest to evidence. If you collect it this way, log what was said and when.
Buying a list is not consent
A purchased or scraped list has no consent attached to it. Messages sent to it are the single most common cause of number blocks and campaign rejections, and the damage is difficult to undo.
When someone asks to stop, Furcata acts on it. The following words and their close variants are recognised as opt-out requests:
STOP STOPALL UNSUBSCRIBE CANCEL END HALT
QUIT SPAM REMOVE OPTOUT ELIMINAR CANCELAR PARARAn opt-out marks the contact as unsubscribed. From that point Furcata will not send to them, whatever triggers a send — an API call, a campaign, or an integration event.
Opt-out is permanent
Treat an opt-out as final. Re-subscribing someone who opted out, or moving their number to a new list to get around the block, is both a compliance failure and a reliable way to lose a number.
People who ask for help — HELP, INFO, ISSUE, FIX, RESOLVE or INQUIRY — are recognised as help requests. You should have a help message configured that tells them who you are and how to reach a person.
Subscription messages are the automatic replies Furcata sends when someone opts in, opts out or asks for help. They are not optional in practice: carriers expect a person to get a clear acknowledgement when they change their subscription state.
Configure all three — an opt-in confirmation, an opt-out confirmation and a help message — and keep them short and unambiguous. Include your organisation's name and, for the help message, a way to reach a human.
- Recognises opt-out, subscribe and help keywords in inbound messages.
- Stops sends to contacts who have unsubscribed, across every send path.
- Skips unsubscribed contacts in integration-driven flows such as Shopify.
- Sends your configured subscription messages when a contact's state changes.
What Furcata cannot do is obtain consent for you. That part is yours.
- Ask for consent at the moment of the transaction, when the reason is obvious.
- Say what people will receive and how often. Vague consent is weak consent.
- Make opting out easy to find — a keyword in every marketing message is standard practice.
- Keep an audit trail. A spreadsheet of number, date, source and wording is enough.
- Review your list periodically and remove anything you cannot evidence.
Next: sender registration
Consent gets you permission from the recipient. Sender registration gets you permission from the carriers.
Sender registration