[lotsofpulp]

> It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye.

It is Google’s phone number.

What is ludicrous is not having a federal US identity verification API such that phone numbers are not the end all be all.

Or that if the US government wants to use phone numbers for identity verification, they enact legislation to provide legal protections from losing it.

But I think leaders like the extrajudicial ability to nuke someone’s life if they need to. Same with bank accounts and know your customer laws that can lock you out for unknown reasons.

You wouldn’t want people to have access to a constitutionally protected electronic money account. Then they have less fear. And if you are someone important, then you contact someone in your network to help you out.

[jtbayly]

It’s actually not Google’s phone number, as evidenced by the fact that he could have gone to the FCC and gotten it back if Google refused to release it to him.

Edited to add: Also, it’s not true that phone numbers are only so important because of identity verification. That is one reason, but solving that doesn’t let my children’s school call me if Google shuts my number down, just to give one example.

Edited to add again: It’s unclear to me now if the FCC actually requires Google to release the number or if Google voluntarily does it (eg to avoid problems with the FCC getting more involved).

[runjake]

> It’s actually not Google’s phone number

IANAL, but according to the Reddit post mentioned in this thread, the number isn't yours:

"Consumer Google Voice is not a FCC-regulated Local Exchange Carrier, and you have no explicit nor implied rights to the indefinite use of Google Voice telephone numbers."

"If you want to port the number out of the suspended service, you can file a FCC Consumer Complaint, asking for the number to be unlocked for porting out. These complaints get reviewed by Google's legal department. FCC complaints will NOT get your Google Voice service restored, as there is no regulation requiring Google to offer free service."

https://old.reddit.com/r/Googlevoice/comments/17n4zl2/google...

[jtbayly]

That’s interesting. Very unclear to me whether it says what you think it says. The emphasis seems to be on Google Voice service, not the number itself. I would expect the FCC complaint asking for number porting to go nowhere if Google didn’t believe they were required to release the number for porting.

[runjake]

Yeah, like I said, I'm not a lawyer, but I zeroed in on "you have no explicit nor implied rights to the indefinite use of Google Voice telephone numbers" in particular, for intent.

This is just a Reddit post and not a legal document, but the post is effectively the crowdsourced findings from a heck of a lot of Google's victims who have tried a number of different tactics.

[eszed]

Many many years ago I received a phone number from a conventional carrier and then ported it into Google Voice. I wonder if there is a (legal or technical) distinction between that and "a Google Voice telephone number"?

[wiredfool]

My google voice number predates Google buying a VOIP service where I had my number, and then killing that service and giving me google voice. So, it's not really google's number either.

[lotsofpulp]

Sorry, I should not have assumed that Google voice numbers provided for free are portable. Or at least not immediately released back to the pool of available numbers.

It is a free service, so I expected to not have any right to it.

I also feel like my only use for phone numbers for many years has been identity verification. If I lost access to it, I could be reached via multiple other communications avenues, but I can only get 2FA SMS sent to my phone number for many services, including government websites.

[jtbayly]

That’s certainly a wise expectation, but that doesn’t make it right that the company can do that, whether you pay them or not. The fact that the FCC recognizes your right to the phone number you’ve been using (regardless of payment) is instructive.

Edited to add: from other comments, the FCC requiring them to release the number might actually be wrong. It’s possible that it is just Google being wise themselves to avoid trouble.

[lotsofpulp]

> but that doesn’t make it right that the company can do that, whether you pay them or not.

Yes, I just wanted to highlight that the focus on fixing this vulnerability should not have anything to do with Google, but rather elected leaders doing their job to protect everyone in society. Similar to blaming banks for closing accounts for seemingly no reason.

[Jerrrrrrry]

The incentives align for everyone to play dumb, as incompetence at this scale can dissolve responsibility/accountability via complexity/laundering that can systematically benefit a select few.