Microsoft's recently released YouTube application for Windows Phone has been blocked by Google for violation of YouTube's terms of service.
Not long ago, Google and Microsoft agreed to jointly develop a YouTube app for Windows Phone after it was disabled for not including advertisements as a part of YouTube's API terms and conditions. Google had sent a cease and desist letter demanding Microsoft remove the YouTube app from Windows Phone Store, earlier in May. Microsoft agreed to re-develop the app with YouTube's terms and conditions and it successfully ran, until now.
Microsoft released its new YouTube application for Windows Phone, which displays ads, but was blocked by Google for violation of terms of service. The new disagreement looks like as if both companies are back to square one. But this time, Microsoft is blaming Google for creating reasons to block the app from Windows Phone platform by implementing new terms, which are not imposed on its own Android platform or Apple's iOS.
"It seems to us that Google's reasons for blocking our app are manufactured so that we can't give our users the same experience Android and iPhone users are getting," Microsoft's Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, David Howard, wrote in a blog post. "The roadblocks Google has set up are impossible to overcome, and they know it."
Howard added that Google refused to share the information that Apple and Android uses for the YouTube app .
"We're committed to providing users and creators with a great and consistent YouTube experience across devices, and we've been working with Microsoft to build a fully featured YouTube for Windows Phone app, based on HTML5. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not made the browser upgrades necessary to enable a fully-featured YouTube experience, and has instead re-released a YouTube app that violates our Terms of Service," Google said in a statement to CNET News. "It has been disabled. We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines."
In the meantime, Microsoft has decided to publish its non-HTML5 browser while the team is working with Google to develop the app based on HTML5 as well as comply with YouTube's terms and conditions.
