I signed up back in June. From day one, I've never been able to call my GV number from any carrier. I get, "your call cannot be completed as dialed." It's very frustrating. I filled out Google's troubleshooting form in early July, but still nothing.

I doubt if you ever will be able to port a phone number. Google Voice is not a Telecommuncations company so other phone companies would not be required to release the number. And Google Voice will probably never be eligible for ported numbers because they do not want to be a telecom--too many regulations that they do not want to follow.

As others have stated, the voicemail messages that appeared on the internet were marked as "public" in the first place... by the USER!

If privacy is not a concern then let me have your number so I can leave a message for your next weeks drug deal at your dear old grandma's house. I'll watch the news to see if the police make a bust.

I've had GV for a couple at least 2 years now (when they first offered it) and I love it. I don't have to give out my personal cell or home number. I use it mainly for business. Whichever line I have it routed to I can hear the caller and decide to accept it or not. I can block calls. It's portable.

As with anything else Internet related, use at your own risk. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. The "leaked messages" were actually posted by the owner. You can share voicemails via email with other users without them needing a Google account.

Besides, what the big deal? People are baring all on MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Again, as with anything, use at your own risk.

People have short memories. Gmail had all the same issues and people still love it. First off, Gmail was invite only when the service was first released. They worked out a slew of new features before it went public.

Second on privacy...its free for a reason, if you don't like it, don't use it. Google Mail has a script looking for keywords that goes "if this word or phrase is in this message, show this ad" that's it. There is no such thing as privacy with any public email or voicemail service. To think other wise is silly. Anyone can abuse it regardless of any myth of privacy you have regardless if its against company policy it still doesn't stop some admin. If its really that much of a concern, don't use the service, encrypt all communications because everything can be sniffed. Personally, I'm more worried about privacy in a number of other areas then my voicemail. If I have security concerns about voicemail, I would not use a public company provided service to begin with unless some form of encryption or guarantee I am the only person whose password unlocks the contents using encryption.

This is not a privacy issue, as purported to be. If you read the article at pcmag.com, the "leaked" voicemails were actually POSTED to the internet (on a blog or something), and then were able to be searched by Google. They were actually made public already, by the user. So it's not really a privacy issue. Still, Google said they won't allow that anymore, so if you post your voicemail somewhere on the internet, it won't be indexed by search engines. But if you DO post a voicemail on the internet, then don't expect it to be kept private.

concern number one is not a problem because I already have the service

Concern two is not an issue because I can trade off having a free number that routes my numbers for some limitations, plus I don't call out from GV that much

If concern 3 is being addressed, fine... It would be a big issue if they weren't going to fix it.