The other day, developers noted it was strange that Google had started pulling Android tethering (phone as modem) applications from the Android Marketplace, given the project's constant proclamations about openness. It looks like Google has since backtracked -- sort of. According to a post by one of the original banned developers, (via Android Community) Google has decided to restore the application -- for everybody but those in T-Mobile markets.

In other words, Google is going to ban applications from the Android Market in markets where tethering violates a carrier's TOS. This ultimately creates a strange, uneven availability for apps depending on what carrier you have. Yeah, smart users can still install tethering apps on their own with a little elbow grease -- but that doesn't make it any less of a strange move for a community that was priding itself on how open it was.

The move runs contrary to previous statements by T-Mobile that third party tethering apps would be no big deal. The idea that a carrier is dictating what applications Google makes available would seem to run contrary to the project's secondary mission (after making money): shake up the closed nature of the wireless phone industry and their networks, which have suffered from precisely this sort of malady since inception.