Google Says Apple Rejected Google Voice Application in July

“When we submitted our letter on August 21, we asked the FCC to redact certain portions that involved sensitive commercial conversations between two companies -- namely, a description of e-mails, telephone conversations, and in-person meetings between executives at Google and Apple,” Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, said Friday on the Google Policy Blog.

The FCC had received several Freedom of Information Act requests seeking release of the full text of the letter, Whitt said. “While we could have asked the FCC to oppose those requests, in light of Apple’s decision to make its own letter fully public and in the interest of transparency, we decided to drop our request for confidentiality.”

The full letter describes a series of “in person meetings, phone calls and e-mails” by Google and Apple executives between July 5 and July 28 about Google Voice. On July 7, Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, informed Alan Eustace, Google senior vice president of engineering and research, that Apple was rejecting the Google Voice application, the letter said.

“Apple’s representatives informed Google that the Google Voice Application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone,” Google told the FCC. “The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality.”

Apple in its Aug. 21 letter indicated it had made no decision whether to reject the application. Apple said “contrary to published reports” it hasn’t rejected Google Voice and continues to study it for possible approval. “The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail,” Apple said. An Apple spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Meanwhile Friday, FreeConferenceCall.com President David Erickson condemned Google for blocking calls to free conference-call centers and other numbers associated with high access charges. In an interview, he said the FCC should declare that Google Voice is a service subject to the same rules as traditional telephone providers. Google Voice is more than an app because it provides and connects to regular phone numbers, he said. Google “wants to replace AT&T but doesn’t want to play by the same rules,” Erickson said.

“It is a risky strategy for Google Voice to choose who and who not to include in its business model, a model that relies upon the Public Switch[ed] Telephone Network for its success,” Erickson said. “For all of the complaints that I have received about call blocking, not a single person has ever said that they think it is okay that their calls are being blocked. In fact, they are mad as heck about it.”

Google doesn’t “restrict access to any particular phone numbers as a matter of course, though we do reserve the right to do so in our terms of service,” said Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel. “Google Voice is a free software tool that gives users more controls and features that work with their existing phones, but it’s not a replacement for traditional phone service.”

Google’s blocking also raised red flags among officials of traditional phone companies and public interest groups. Whether Google can block alleged traffic pumpers is a question that needs to be addressed by the FCC or Congress, said John Rose, president of the Organization for the Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment by our deadline.

“Google continues to advocate for legacy regulations for traditional competitive services, but not for its own comparable offerings,” USTelecom said Friday. “We believe that these are all competitive services in a highly competitive market, and therefore a government-led approach is not constructive for innovation or for consumers.”

Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance President Curt Stamp urged “regulatory parity,” saying many of his mid-sized members would “be more than happy” to block traffic pumpers if the practice wasn’t banned by the FCC. However, he said the best approach for the FCC would be to stop Google from blocking, rather than allowing all voice providers to do so.

If someone files a petition on the issue, the FCC should put it out for comment, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. It won’t be easy to decide the right rules, but clarity is needed to prevent companies from taking advantage with products that blur the line between unregulated apps and regulated services, he said. Google should not be permitted to reap the privileges of Title II services without the responsibilities, he said. Public Knowledge has previously advocated that common carriers not be allowed to block calls to numbers as a means to reduce the amount of access fees they pay out. At minimum, Google should have to provide full disclosure to customers of what numbers the company blocks, Feld said.

Whether the FCC would intervene is unclear. Stamp said the Genachowski FCC’s policy positions are still too amorphous to know for sure how the agency would respond. Stopping Google here would be consistent with the “technology-neutral tone” taken on broadband, he said. However, Rose said he wouldn’t bet on the Genachowski FCC applying common carrier rules to Google, because the agency won’t want to discourage development of innovative broadband- based apps. The FCC declined to comment.