The Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) is a law enforced by the Federal Trade Commission that mandates telemarketers and outside charitable fundraisers specifically disclose material information, not misrepresent themselves, only call consumers within certain timeframes, not call consumers on a do-not-call list and follow guidelines regarding how certain goods and services can be sold. In many respects, the TSR is redundant with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act – because why have only one ambiguous federal law regulating telemarketing when you can have two? But importantly, outside of exceptional circumstances, the TSR does not have a private right of action, and therefore, only the FTC (or state governments) are ever likely to enforce it. And even then, most government enforcement activity under the TSR is directed against prerecorded telemarketing calls or charitable solicitations, and text messaging has never been folded into the TSR like it has been with the TCPA.
As a result, while the FTC provides fairly detailed guidance on how companies can comply with the TSR, this guidance will generally not be directly applicable to companies engaging consumers via text message.