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Restricted & Prohibited Industries

Every messaging and voice channel Orbit connects to — SMS, MMS, RCS, WhatsApp, Viber, and voice — is governed by the acceptable-use rules of the carriers, aggregators, and platform owners underneath it (CTIA and the US carriers for SMS/10DLC, Meta for WhatsApp, the GSMA carriers for RCS, national regulators everywhere else). Sending banned content does not just risk a single blocked message: it can get your sender ID de-registered, your 10DLC campaign suspended, or your WhatsApp Business Account permanently banned across every provider — not just Orbit. This page is the plain-language reference for what you can and cannot send. Use it before you launch a campaign in a new vertical.
This is compliance guidance, not legal advice, and the rules change frequently. The final decision always belongs to the carrier, aggregator, or platform reviewing your traffic. When in doubt, ask before you send — email compliance@devotel.io.

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The SHAFT categories

Across US A2P messaging (10DLC, short codes, toll-free) the carriers enforce a shared “SHAFT” content standard. These categories are restricted or banned on messaging channels regardless of the country you are sending to, and each carrier’s automated content filters look for them: Cannabis and CBD are treated as an extension of SHAFT: cannabis (including CBD, even where legal locally) is prohibited on US A2P messaging by the carriers, and content that promotes it will fail 10DLC vetting.

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High-risk verticals (allowed with extra vetting)

These industries are legal but heavily restricted. They are allowed on Orbit only with the right registration, disclosures, and — for some — provider pre-approval. Expect longer onboarding and stricter template review.
Allowed for licensed operators in regulated markets only. You must provide a valid gambling license during onboarding, honour self-exclusion lists, and avoid “guaranteed win” claims. Blocked outright in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal.
Allowed with clear APR disclosure. High-cost / payday lending (short-term loans above the US ~36% APR threshold) is prohibited on US carriers. Debt-collection messaging must follow FDCPA-style disclosure rules.
Informational and account-security messages (login alerts, price alerts, KYC prompts) are generally allowed. Promotional crypto — token sales, airdrops, “get rich quick” framing, leveraged products — is restricted and blocked outright on US 10DLC.
Appointment reminders, refill notifications, and OTC/wellness products are allowed. Direct-to-consumer sale of prescription drugs, controlled substances, and weight-loss/HRT drugs is prohibited.
Order and delivery notifications from established companies are allowed. Any “recruit for commission”, “passive income”, or “join my downline” content is prohibited and will fail vetting.
Allowed for registered campaigns and issue advocacy with documented registration in the relevant jurisdiction. Election misinformation and impersonation of officials are prohibited, and platforms impose temporary blackouts during some election windows.

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Prohibited everywhere (never allowed)

These are banned on every channel, with no consent or registration that makes them acceptable:
  • Illegal drugs, controlled substances, and drug paraphernalia
  • Weapons, explosives, and ammunition (where the platform bans them — WhatsApp bans globally)
  • Stolen, counterfeit, or illicit goods; hacking or malware services
  • Phishing, deceptive marketing, and “grey-route” / SIM-farm traffic
  • Human trafficking, child exploitation, and any content that is illegal in the destination country

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How Orbit enforces the posture on your traffic

Orbit applies these rules at three points in the flow, so problems surface before a carrier rejects your traffic:
  1. 10DLC pre-flight vetting. When you register a US brand or campaign in the 10DLC wizard, your vertical and sample content are checked against the carriers’ restricted-content categories (SHAFT and their extended high-risk list) before the registration is filed. A failed pre-flight returns a fix card naming the blocking category, so you can re-scope the use case before TCR ever sees it. See 10DLC Registration.
  2. Compose-time lint. Draft messages run through the same policy scanner via POST /api/v1/messages/lint, which returns every matched rule with a suggested rephrase. Use it while building templates so restricted content fails in your editor, not at dispatch.
  3. Per-message scan at dispatch. Every outbound message is scanned before it hands off to the carrier: SHAFT keyword categories on US SMS, the destination country’s content_restrictions and sender-registration rules (re-read per send from the country-rules catalog), and sensitive-data (DLP) detection. The scanner returns pass, warn, or block, and your organization’s policy scan mode decides what happens next — warn (default) records the finding and still sends, strict rejects a blocked message with POLICY_VIOLATION, and off skips the scan.
All three are floors you control (and can tighten), not a substitute for carrier review. The final decision always sits with the carrier, aggregator, or platform: even a message that passes every Orbit check can still be filtered, delayed, or rejected downstream by the carrier’s own automated content filters.

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Lifecycle when the rules change

When a category drifts from allowed to restricted. Nothing happens retroactively. A country or carrier updating its posture does not deregister your filed brands, invalidate existing campaign registrations, or rewrite messages already delivered. The change takes effect at message time: the destination country’s content_restrictions is re-read on every send, so the first message dispatched after the update gets the new verdict — recorded in warn mode, rejected with POLICY_VIOLATION in strict mode. For 10DLC, only a carrier- or TCR-mandated change triggers re-vetting of an existing campaign, and when it does the wizard surfaces the re-file requirement. Appealing an adverse verdict. If you believe a provider verdict is wrong — a brand rejected over a miscategorized vertical, a campaign flagged for content your use case does not involve — email compliance@devotel.io with the rejection notice and the evidence that supports a re-file (updated use-case description, corrected sample messages, licensing or registration documents). For US 10DLC specifically, follow the amend-and-resubmit flow in 10DLC Rejections & Re-vet: a rejection comes back as a fix card telling you whether the same brand or campaign can be resubmitted with corrected fields, and a straightforward resubmit typically completes in the same 1–5 business days as an initial filing.

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Channel-specific policies

The SHAFT baseline above is the floor. Individual channels layer their own rules on top:
  • WhatsApp enforces Meta’s Commerce and Business Messaging policies, which are stricter than SMS in several verticals (crypto, dating, supplements) — see the dedicated WhatsApp Restricted & Prohibited Content Policy.
  • RCS follows the carrier + Google agent-verification rules; see RCS.
  • US A2P SMS additionally requires 10DLC brand and campaign registration, where your use case and vertical are vetted — see the 10DLC Registration guide.

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Restrictions vary by country

On top of the industry rules above, what is restricted also depends on where you send. Alcohol is fine in one market and blocked in the next; some countries prohibit whole categories of promotional content. Orbit publishes a per-country regulatory reference — including each country’s content_restrictions — through the country-rules API and the dashboard. Check it before launching in a new market:
See Country Compliance Requirements for how to read those rules, and what documentation each country expects.