Consumer and public interest groups have jointly filed a petition with the FCC asking the commission to stop carriers from blocking text messages from political groups and advertisers. Filed today by Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Free Press, Mobile Commons and others, the petition comes after Verizon Wireless blocked text messages from a reproductive rights organization in September. Verizon reversed its decision to block the messages, when the story was reported.
"Mobile carriers currently can and do arbitrarily decide what customers to serve and which speech to allow on text messages, refusing to serve those that they find controversial or that compete with the mobile carriers' services," says the petition. "This type of discrimination would be unthinkable and illegal in the world of voice communications, and it should be so in the world of text messaging as well."
VoIP provider Rebtel, also supports the petition, saying that carriers have blocked messages from the company advertising its lower cost VoIP services. "We've said from the start that rejecting our short code campaign was anticompetitive abuse of power," said Hjalmar Winbladh, Rebtel co-founder and CEO, in a statement.
While Verizon Wireless said its blocking of Naral's text messaging campaign was a mistake, it said that carriers should not have to carry advertising from competitors.
Carriers and other vendors also are concerned that if the FCC grants the petition consumers could be flooded with text spam. Verizon Wireless has said that it blocks between 100 and 200 million unwanted text messages a month, with many that contain pornography.
But the groups filing the petition argue that carriers should not be allowed to discriminate who is allowed to send "lawful" messages, saying that allowing carriers to decide which messages are sent hinders free speech, is anticompetitive and can hamper innovation.
Currently, carriers are not allowed to censor voice calls and individual e-mails, but there are no rules on the censoring of text messages.
Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement: "We need to have the FCC set the rules for the entire industry, and for a generation of people that depends on texting. There is no place for discrimination in text messaging."