As with the Apple App Store before it, Google's Android Market is currently going through growing pains with cell carriers over tethering applications — programs that allow you to use your phone's data service to provide internet access to your laptop (check out our how-to guide for tethering via Blutooth). Google has now reportedly pulled all tethering apps from the store, apparently at the request of T-Mobile who currently carries the only subsidized Android device in the U.S., the HTC-manufactured G1. Mobile carriers have been historically very adversorial about these type of applications out of fear that they will cut into the arguably exorbitant fees they are able to charge users for mobile data plans in this country.

Because Android developers are not compelled to sell software through the Market, tethering applications still may be made available by developers on their own or through other distribution avenues — but an outright ban from the official marketplace might dissuade them from undertaking the effort at all for fear of lackluster sales outside of the main storefront. The issue also raises some troubling questions about how "open" the Android platform really is, if the Android Market must ultimately bow to the terms of service of multiple carriers and device makers. It also gives us the perfect excuse to squeeze in our at-least-once-daily gripe about how U.S. carriers need to implement more sensible and flexible data plans to meet an expanding market that lags behind Europe and Asia in large part because of historically unreasonable fee structures.

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