SCROOGLED: Google’s turn to become the bully
Google has blocked Microsoft’s Youtube App for Windows Mobile. The newly redesigned app was pulled a mere few hours after it reached the Google Play stores. Instead of letting Google develop the official Youtube App for the Windows Mobile, Microsoft had taken the lead on the project.
Microsoft's first attempt at a Youtube App was disabled in May because it ‘failed to show enough ads’.
The new app did have advertisements, but was still blocked. The language that Google used to justify this decision was both vague and incomprehensible.
Google’s press statement:
“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. It has been disabled. We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines.”
Microsoft spokespeople have already come out against Google, calling the reasons ‘manufactured’ and labeling the decision an anti-competitive bullying tactic to try to kill the nascent but fast growing Windows Mobile platform while it still can.
The crux of the issue is that Google wants Microsoft to build the official Youtube app on HTML5 instead of the native language of Windows Phone- C++. Microsoft responded by saying that this demand is unfair since the official Youtube applications on its two biggest competitors — Android and iOS, are both built in their respective native languages and not HTML5. In effect, Google is enforcing a separate, higher set of standards for the Windows Mobile ecosystem than any of the others.
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