Google, looking like Apple, pulls tethering apps
April 2nd, 2009 | by elisabeth | Published in Android, iphone | 2 Comments
I’m starting to get a better sense of what Google’s open mobile OS, Android, will look like in practice. Google has just pulled tethering apps from the Market, the on-phone equivalent of Apple’s App Store. Tethering apps allow users to use their mobile phone as a sort of modem/internet connection for their laptop, and carriers hate them because they eat so much bandwidth.
The Android Developer TOS specifically provided that
“Google enters into distribution agreements with device manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation of the Device manufacturer’s or Authorized Carrier’s terms of service.”
and T-Mobile’s terms of service forbid tethering, so Google pulled the app per the TOS. (What will happen, though, if carrier that doesn’t forbid tethering comes out with an Android-based phone? Why shouldn’t those people be able to access the phone in the Market?) You might remember that Apple also quickly yanked a tethering app, NetShare, that upset AT&T.
The big difference between Android phones and iPhones, of course, is that Android users can go to third-party developers’ websites and download the app directly. Maybe users sophisticated enough to use tethering apps are also sophisticated enough to move beyond the Market, or maybe other big aggregator sites will pop up. Or maybe people will actually be motivated to seek out these apps by the uproar when they’re pulled. Or maybe apps not in the Market will wither away.
As I read the TOS, Google could use its kill switch to yank back even those apps downloaded from third-party websites, but I haven’t heard of that happening yet.
So it looks like what we’re seeing from Google is a relatively heavy hand in the Market and a light hand outside of it. The question is what users will do with that.
—By Elisabeth Oppenheimer
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm (#)
“What will happen, though, if carrier that doesn’t forbid tethering comes out with an Android-based phone? Why shouldn’t those people be able to access the [app] in the Market?”
They will be able to access the app in the Market:
http://androidguys.com/?p=4418
April 4th, 2009 at 4:08 pm (#)
I disagree that Google’s pulling a tethering app — or, as it appears is actually the case, limiting the carriers with which it works — amounts to a “heavy hand.” As much as we’d all love unfettered access to such innovative software and 24/7 wireless broadband, it’s reasonable for Google to step in where the limitations of its partner networks make tethering implausible. If it’s the case that T-Mobile simply can’t handle the potential demands of every Android user hitting up Battlestar Galactica torrents in the local park, there’s a real concern. Individual users can’t be expected to limit their usage for the good of the network, so a central authority needs to act to preserve what is ultimately in everyone’s interest. Given the choice, I think we’d rather all of our calls / emails / texts go through all of the time than some of us have access to tethering some of the time. This is a non-evil reason to block the app.
Now that said, T-Mobile may object to tethering simply to preserve its own business in selling the same internet access to the same customers as a separate package. That’s a potentially more objectionable motive, to the extent it doesn’t overlap with the one described above…