When I first started my career, I was the tech responsible for something like this.

The "crippling" of GPS lookup times and accuracy in cell phones. This was network assisted GPS locations, and each hit to the assistance server cost the carrier money (just the way it was licensed from the vendor IIRC). But RIM added a free maps app that would allow users to look up against the assistance server without having GPS in their plan (when it was a separate option).

The funny part was, when I applied the change, the tests didn't seem to work, and rolled it back within an hour or two. This was overnight, so when everyone woke up, they started testing their GPS and decided they'd been blocked and made a giant stink on internet forums, and the entire project was cancelled and never re-attempted.