• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 15, 2009

AT&T is ratcheting up its effort to cast Google as a violator of net neutrality principles for preventing users of its voice app from making some rural calls.

"As communications services increasingly migrate to broadband Internet-based platforms, we can now see the power of Internet-based applications providers to act as gatekeepers who can threaten the 'free and open' Internet," AT&T exec Robert Quinn writes in a new letter to the FCC. "Google's double-standard for 'openness' -- where Google does what it wants while other providers are subject to Commission regulations -- is plainly inconsistent with the goal of preserving a 'free and open' Internet ecosystem."

Quinn goes on to list the organizations that can't receive Google Voice calls: "An ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives," are among the blocked exchanges, he says.

Google says it blocks some calls to rural numbers because several rural carriers charge prohibitively expensive rates. The company maintains that it couldn't offer its voice service if it had to connect all rural calls.

AT&T counters that it can't refuse to connect calls, so neither should Google. The telecom giant argues that Google's call blocking violates rules governing telephone services as well as net neutrality principles.

Whether Google's voice app breaks rules that ban telecoms from blocking calls appears murky, given that it's unclear how Google's voice service should be classified.

But it's hard to see how Google even potentially violates neutrality principles, given that such principles only apply to ISPs, not to companies that offer Web-based services.

What's more, there's an obvious reason why policymakers should treat ISPs differently from companies like Google: Web users don't have a lot of options when it comes to ISPs. Some consumers only have one broadband provider, and many others have a choice of only two -- their local cable company or telecom. If one or both of those companies decides to block visits to certain Web sites, there's very little consumers can do about it.

AT&T also takes aim at Google for allegedly excluding certain Web sites from its search results. Citing a Fox News report, Quinn writes that Google recently blocked Inner City Press from appearing in Google News after Google began partnering with the United Nations Development Program. "Only after other U.N. watchdog organizations howled in protest against Google's blocking did Google relent and re-admit Inner City Press to Google News," Quinn says.

Google's power to censor search results is problematic, especially given the company's market dominance in search. But it's not a neutrality issue -- especially when consumers can easily turn to other search engines if they don't like the results that Google returns.

To date, at least one court has backed Google in disputes about search results. Several years ago directory and search engine KinderStart.com sued Google after it stopped showing KinderStart's site in the results. Not only did the judge dismiss the case, but he also ordered KinderStart's attorney to pay $7,500 in sanctions for having brought the action.