Saturday, May 7, 2011

Tethering applications blocked in Android market

Google is about to block some of the apps from android market which let Google Android users use their smartphones as modems for internet usage without paying the services charges to the wireless carriers. In last few days, several blogs have reported that free Android phone tethering apps that are typically found in the Android Market are not available for Android phones on some of the USA's giant wireless carriers.

Sprint customers apparently are still able to access many of these tethering apps from the Android Market. As per Google they are making it unavailable for download on certain carrier networks at the request of those carriers. If an application is in direct violation of the terms and conditions of a usage contract, a carrier can request Google to make the app unavailable and for that particular network that app will be blocked.

In other words, the apps are still on the Google Market, but they are just not visible to users on certain carrier networks. Apps are only hidden from view if they are in direct violation of the carrier's terms of service.

The good news is still you can use such apps if you are fetching it from somewhere outside android market. What need to be done is the developer distributes the apps out of Android market and it is side-loaded into your device.

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