united-states internet
Is there a legal basis for sending anonymous SMS to a number?
<p>I am an app developer form Germany and quite unsure about American law. I am working on a social networking site where people can only participate if their friends invite them anonymously and via SMS. </p>

<p>It works like the following:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The existing user selects the person that should be invited from his contacts</p></li>
<li><p>The selection triggers our service to send an anonymous SMS going: "Someone has invited you to join X: click on the link below to join." or something.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Now, apart from the fact that this may look like a phishing SMS, am I legally allowed, not to retrieve the phone number, that is all sorted out in the EULA and terms and conditions, but to anonymously send an SMS to this phone number?</p>

<p>It could be legal, but maybe illegal. <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/08/candid-answers-can-spam-questions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This Q&amp;A</a> from the FTC may me useful. There is no general rule in the US against anonymously contacting someone, but there is a spam opt-out registry. Internet-to-phone SMS might be illegal if the recipient is in the registry and the message is "commercial". There are different rules (via the FTC Act or the Telephone Consumer Protection Act) if this is phone-to-phone SMS (same opt-out registry). Here is a sample ruling against a company (<a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/06/19/07-16356.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Satterfield v. Simon &amp; Schuster</a>) for sending an illegal text message.</p>
