Google blocks YouTube WP app again; Microsoft cries foul

The joys of several YouTube Windows Phone app users turned woefully short-lived after Google blocked it again, shortly after it was re-introduced to the store .

For those not in the know, Microsoft had launched an improved version of the YouTube app on the WP platform last May . At the time, Google wasn’t happy with the way the app had turned out and pointed out a number of issues, following which the software giant promptly pulled down the app. Microsoft worked with Google to iron out the issues in the app and re-launched the app on its store this week after fixing the issues that had been raised in the past.

Screenshots of the app

Now, in the wake of Google blocking access to the YouTube WP app, David Howard Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Litigation & Antitrust, Microsoft has penned down his thoughts in a post titled “ The limits of Google’s openness ”.

Howard explained how the company “worked hard” to make changes to the YouTube WP app, keeping in mind Google’s requests. To that effect, he says, Microsoft enabled Google’s advertisements, disabled video downloads and removed the ability for users to view reserved videos on the app. “We did this all at no cost to Google, which one would think would want a YouTube app on Windows Phone that would only serve to bring Google new users and additional revenue,” he pointed out.

He added that Google had asked them to move their app to HTML5, when neither YouTube’s iPhone nor its Android app worked on the same principle. Microsoft engineers, he says, sat down to look into the possibility of doing such a thing. Howard added: “At the end of the day, experts from both companies recognized that building a YouTube app based on HTML5 would be technically difficult and time consuming, which is why we assume YouTube has not yet made the conversion for its iPhone and Android apps.” Finally, Microsoft settled for a non-HTML5-based app for the time being and promised that they would work with Google long-term on developing the HTML5-based app. 

As per Howard, Google believes that the YouTube WP app does not comply with its terms and conditions. This particular issue, he says, has to do with the fact the app is not based on HTML5. Google has raised issues about Microsoft’s branding too, in addition to saying that the app offers a “degraded experience”. 

One of Google’s issues with the application has been that it doesn’t always serve ads based on conditions put forth by content creators. Microsoft, it seems, had asked Google to provide it the information that iPhone and Android get to help them emulate the way ads are served on them, which Google refused. “So far at least, Google has refused to give this information to us. We are quite confident that we can solve this issue if Google cooperates, but fixing Google’s concern here is entirely within Google’s control. If Google stops blocking our app, we are happy to work with them on this, entirely at Microsoft’s expense,” he pointed out. 

“We think it’s clear that Google just doesn’t want Windows Phone users to have the same experience as Android and Apple users, and that their objections are nothing other than excuses,” laments Howard towards the end of his lengthy post.