Google, the more things change…
Open Call Access
It amazes me to see how quickly forward looking companies like Google resort to backward looking defenses to avoid regulation. By trying to pretend that regulations should be applied as if technology and business models of today were more like those of 1980, Google is trying to avoid being governed by the same rules as other companies providing telecom service.
Common Carrier Laws provide for open access and are in place to ensure that providers of services (telephone in this case), allow consumers unfettered use at a reasonable rate. AT&T is using this law to petition the FCC to make Google open it’s Google Voice service, allowing users to call all numbers. Currently, Google blocks the calling of some numbers based on local carrier charges (in those areas) to Google. Their justification is not unreasonable on the surface. You can see their post here.
In part…
“Google Voice’s goal is to provide consumers with free or low-cost access to as many advanced communications features as possible. In order to do this, Google Voice does restrict certain outbound calls from our Web platform to these high-priced destinations. But despite AT&T’s efforts to blur the distinctions between Google Voice and traditional phone service, there are many significant differences:
• Unlike traditional carriers, Google Voice is a free, Web-based software application, and so not subject to common carrier laws.
• Google Voice is not intended to be a replacement for traditional phone service — in fact, you need an existing land or wireless line in order to use it. Importantly, users are still able to make outbound calls on any other phone device.
• Google Voice is currently invitation-only, serving a limited number of users.”
ATT is arguing that Google should be forced to behave like a carrier based on Common Carrier laws.
“whether a carrier is a common carrier . . . does not depend upon whether its charter declares it to be such . . . but upon what it does.” US v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 249 US 296 (1919).
While the distinction Google makes may seem appropriate, I only have to look back over the past year to see the impact of parsing words rather than recognizing intent.
In the financial service markets, one of the common paths around regulation was the ability to declare a company as one form of institution and being subject to the regulations thereof, while conducting activities that are clearly that of a different industry, and avoiding those regulations. As President Obama rightly stated, we need to regulated activities regardless of the companies by which they are conducted.
If you want to provide phone service, you should be regulated by the same rules as any telecom. While Google is providing this service “Free” and to a “limited number of users,” we cannot view this for the short term. As they further said, “Google Voice’s goal is to provide consumers with free or low-cost access to as many advanced communications features as possible.” This implies growth in the intended offerings. I would further argue that, since Google is a for profit firm, “free” is not the same as unprofitable (at least in theory). The Google model is to create services which increase its audience, thereby also increase its value to advertisers. The mode of monetizing the service should not be the measure of the applied regulation, the service itself is the subject.
The rules are for the services provided, not the type of company providing them. I hope we can transfer knowledge gained in the financial services mess to other areas of our regulation.
It is also a shame when companies that show such vision in the development of unique business models and application of technology fall back on the same old-company legal tactics.
AT&T’s prompting has moved lawmakers and the FCC to take some steps in this debate.
