Back in 2008/early 2009 all the Tech Blogs and tech/phone forums universally berated VZW over what they believed to be VZW's practice of 'hobbling' features on handsets on their network in order to sell their own paid VZW features.
Historical accusations included using their influence over phone manufactures to prevent wifi chips from being added to phones (forcing the need for a data plan) to locking down the GPS chip on phones so it only worked with VZ Nav and not (at the time) BB Maps.
It was widely believed that when VZW starting requiring data plans on all their smartphones, this (unproven) practice of phone hobbling went away.
So, the chances of them pulling that BS again, now, with Google of all partners, is highly HIGHLY unlikely. The poopstorm that would kick up would be epic.