The Mountain View, California-based company had recently come under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) scanner after AT&T’s accusation against Google’s violation of telecommunications law by blocking calls to rural areas to cut costs on network access expenses.
Confidential details revealed
In response to FCC enquiry related to the company’s Google Voice application, Google has handed information about number of users of its Voice application, local service providers routing calls through Google Voice, and its plans of extending the service to markets beyond U.S.
This information, which was meant for FCC only, has gone public. According to the documents submitted to FCC, Google Voice has 1.419 million users. Out of this, 570,000 use the service daily.
Google was quoted by BusinessWeek as saying, "We had intended to keep sensitive information regarding our partners and the number of Google Voice users confidential. Unfortunately, the PDF submitted to the FCC was formatted improperly."
Google answers FCC
FCC has now replaced the original letter on its Web site with the one in which the details intended to remain confidential have been blacked out.
But in a public section, Google has stated that it blocked calls to cut down on expenses.
Arguing the reasons for blocking the service, it stated that Google Voice is a free Web-based application, which is different from traditional phone service; therefore it is not subject to the telecom law that requires phone companies to provide access to all numbers.
Further, it stated that some rural companies have partnered with “sex chat lines and ‘free’ conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic” in an activity called “traffic pumping”.
FCC has allowed the local phone companies to charge high rates for routing calls through Google Voice on the assumption that call volumes are low and high rates are needed to support local carriers in rural areas.
On the contrary, high fees along with high call volumes and long duration calls have proved expensive for Google. As a result, it has blocked calls to areas characterized by small population and high call volumes.
Users’ reactions online
A lot of readers online are discussing the latest Google Voice issue. Some are commenting on the blunder of accidently revealing secret stuff, others are discussing its explanation to FCC.
A reader named n3td3v commented on the data leak issue on CNET news, “I wouldn't say its much of a secret but its definitely a blunder.”
Another reader named, Police_States_of_America posted his view on the same site, “i hope someone is fired over this tighten your data policies google!”
Commenting on the Google’s explanation to FCC, a reader named “all things considered” stated on engadget.com, “Interesting stuff; I didn't know this was going on. I have to admit, Google (whether it's their legal dept. or otherwise) seems a lot better at responding to 'issues' more quickly than other companies.”
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