Developer claims T-Mobile yanked its app off of Android Market
Visual voice mail company YouMail says its application was wrongly removed from the marketplace at the request of T-Mobile.
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Visual voice mail company YouMail claims that T-Mobile USA had its application removed from Android Market, in what could be seen as the latest example of carrier influence over the mobile business.
YouMail CEO Alex Quilici said his application was pulled without notice. Android's support team sent him a note explaining that T-Mobile had requested the action because it felt the application was adversely affecting the network.
"We encourage you to contact T-Mobile to negotiate a revision and/or agreement to republish this application and update your existing users," the message read.
But Quilici said T-Mobile never contacted the company to talk about the issue. The other national carriers, meanwhile, haven't complained about the application either.
A T-Mobile spokesman wasn't immediately available to comment on the pulled application.
The removal comes after news that Google pulled the Google Wallet application from the Galaxy Nexus at Verizon Wireless' request. Verizon denies it is blocking the app; it said the companies are continuing to negotiate over the unique integration needed for the app to work.
Quilici, in a draft of a blog post he is preparing to make public, defended YouMail's status as an established company with a growing user base. While falling short of accusing T-Mobile of dismissing a superior competitive service, he heavily implied it.
"We hate to think this is simply anti-competitive behavior on T-Mobile's part--especially given they are trying to finish their acquisition by AT&T--simply because we've produced an innovative and dramatically better voicemail product than they offer, and that's free on top of it," he said. "But we're hard-pressed to understand their behavior."
He also disagreed with Android's approach of taking the app completely off the market if one carrier complains about it.
"The 'guilty until proven innocent' doesn't speak well for the Android Marketplace either," he said.
He added that the application is still available on Amazon's app store.