Carriers have to reach agreements with the companies that distribute content and information via Short Code before their subscribers will have access to them. Verizon Wireless (VZW) caused quite a stink when they decided not to allow pro-choice organization NARAL to distribute Opt-In messages to its subscribers via Short Code SMS. VZW quickly reversed their decision.
Ars Technica has details on why the FCC should get involved
Tech freedom advocacy group Public Knowledge, Free Press and other groups were unsatisfied with Verizon's turnaround and have asked the FCC to issue a clear policy position that will block Verizon from engaging in similar practices in the future. Noting that the FCC already unambiguously forbids similar discrimination in voice calls and e-mails, the activist groups argue that there is no reason why those same protections shouldn't extend to SMS messaging, especially since it is becoming an increasingly important vector for communication.
Verizon has also been accused of denying short code access to companies that intend to use SMS to promote of facilitate services that compete directly with other services offered by the carrier. Critics argue that this practice stifles innovation and discourages third-party development of some SMS-based services that are potentially advantageous to consumers.
The first paragraph makes a lot of (common) sense. I mean, if you can use your mobile phone to make an appointment at planned parenthood, why can't you receive equally pro-choice text messages? There's always the argument (expressed later in the article) that if carriers are limited in censoring of text messages that spam messages could run amok. Well, not really. Federal Law already prohibits the heck out of that.
The second paragraph that we included sounds more than a little like the net neutrality stories that we've posted about (like Comcast and BitTorrent). Could mobile phone carriers do the same thing by limiting Short Code access? We've all seen ads on TV telling us to text something like VERYNICE to 12345 to get buy a Borat ringtone. All of our mobile phone carriers sell ringtones too. Well, if they decide that they'd rather have you buy their Ali G ringtone as opposed to someone else's, they could deny your access to that company's Short Codes.
The Net Neutrality/Reasonable Network Management debate and the one about Short Codes go hand-in-hand. Seeing as how there would appear to be a precedent forbidding the restrictions on a voice call because of content, the same would seem to apply to text message content as well. If that argument hold up, then, seeing as how Short Code/SMS censorship is so similar to "Reasonable Network Management" that could help usher in official Net Neutrality legislation.
Full article at Ars Technica.
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