Google Demands Microsoft Pull YouTube App From Windows Phone Due to Lack of Advertising
Google isn't the least bit happy with Microsoft for creating a custom YouTube app for its Windows Phone platform that circumvents ads from playing. As a result, Redmond's been hit with a cease and desist letter that takes the company to task for depriving Google and third-party content creators of revenue that they would otherwise receive from Google's AdSense program.
The Verge obtained a copy of the letter, in which Francisco Varela, Director of Global Platform Partnerships for YouTube, requests that Microsoft immediately remove the YouTube app from the Windows Phone Store and disable existing downloads.
"Content creators make money on YouTube by monetizing their content through advertising. Unfortunately, by blocking advertising and allowing downloads of videos, your application cuts off a valuable ongoing revenue source for creators, and causes harm to the thriving content ecosystem on YouTube," Varela wrote in a letter to Microsoft. "In addition,your application overrides specific decisions made by some content creators to keep their content from displaying on certain types of devices, which in many cases are due to exclusive distribution arrangements those content creators have with third parties. YouTube’s agreements with creators give them choices in how their content is presented and distributed, and your application takes away that control."
Microsoft has since replied to the letter, telling Google that it would be pleased as punch to include advertising in its app, but would first need Google to "provide us access to the necessary APIs." It's a situation that has the potential to turn into a spitting contest between these two giant corporations, though Microsoft appears to have taken Google CEO Larry Page's comments at Google I/O to heart.
Page, who recently disclosed he'd been diagnosed with rare vocal cord paralysis, called on the tech industry for "more interoperability and less negativity" towards each other.
The Verge obtained a copy of the letter, in which Francisco Varela, Director of Global Platform Partnerships for YouTube, requests that Microsoft immediately remove the YouTube app from the Windows Phone Store and disable existing downloads.
"Content creators make money on YouTube by monetizing their content through advertising. Unfortunately, by blocking advertising and allowing downloads of videos, your application cuts off a valuable ongoing revenue source for creators, and causes harm to the thriving content ecosystem on YouTube," Varela wrote in a letter to Microsoft. "In addition,your application overrides specific decisions made by some content creators to keep their content from displaying on certain types of devices, which in many cases are due to exclusive distribution arrangements those content creators have with third parties. YouTube’s agreements with creators give them choices in how their content is presented and distributed, and your application takes away that control."
Microsoft has since replied to the letter, telling Google that it would be pleased as punch to include advertising in its app, but would first need Google to "provide us access to the necessary APIs." It's a situation that has the potential to turn into a spitting contest between these two giant corporations, though Microsoft appears to have taken Google CEO Larry Page's comments at Google I/O to heart.
Page, who recently disclosed he'd been diagnosed with rare vocal cord paralysis, called on the tech industry for "more interoperability and less negativity" towards each other.
