Apparently T-Mobile has an issue with YouMail, as the carrir-sourced complaint to Google has seen the popular app/service that replaces your typical voicemail service with a much better offering that among other things, allows transcription and “visual voicemail” on a good number of phones, removed from the Android Market. In response to a question from GigaOM’s Kevin Tofel, YouMail CEO Alex Quilici wasn’t shy in his assumptions regarding YouMails Android Market removal:
“We hate to think this is simply anti-competitive behavior on T-Mobile’s part — simply because we’ve produced an innovative and dramatically better voicemail product than they offer, and that’s free on top of it. Especially given they are trying to finish their acquisition by AT&T. But we’re hard-pressed to understand their behavior. Wouldn’t we all be much better off if T-Mobile instead took an approach like the other carriers and tried to see how they could benefit from the success we’ve been having with YouMail?”
And the “guilty until proven innocent” doesn’t speak well for the Android Marketplace either. At a minimum, if one carrier complains, why not simply turn off the app for that carrier — it’s only one checkbox – versus suspending it from anyone?”
At least initially, the removal of YouMail seems quite extreme as it affects not just T-Mobile customers, but all Android users across carriers despite no other major carriers (besides T-Mobile today) raising any problems with YouMail in recent memory.
We’ve reached out to T-Mobile and Google regarding the removal of YouMail and will report back when we here anything more.
