Google Demands Microsoft Pull YouTube App For WP8 716
First time accepted submitter exomondo writes "Google has given Microsoft until May 22nd to pull their Windows Phone 8 YouTube app from the marketplace and disable it on customer devices. It not only includes a built-in ad blocker but also allows users to download videos and doesn't impose device-specific streaming restrictions outlined in the YouTube Terms Of Service. A Microsoft spokesperson said in part: 'YouTube is consistently one of the top apps downloaded by smartphone users on all platforms, but Google has refused to work with us to develop an app on par with other platforms. Since we updated the YouTube app to ensure our mutual customers a similar YouTube experience, ratings and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive. We'd be more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs. In light of Larry Page's comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.'"
I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict Microsoft will lose, and lose hard.
They don't have an inherent right to access youtube. It's not in the constitution.
Anything to get more customers (Score:2, Insightful)
If this it what will take Microsoft to get more traction in the mobile market, so be it.
A Youtube client that blocks ads and allows downloads, what else could we ask for??
Who's being evil now???
Sounds familiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. So Microsoft is mad because someone else won't give them details on a closed API?
What a difference a decade makes. How's it feel, Microsoft?
Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Pot, meet Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
MS:Your Honor, we created the App in good faith using the API's available, since those API's do not allow us to add the functions Google is requesting we can not add those features until they make available API's capable of doing so. We are happy to add those features as soon as the API is available we would also willingly remove the app if Google provided a feature complete replacement.
Judge: Why aren't the required API's available?
Google: Ummmm....
Judge: Case dismissed
Re:And (Score:2, Insightful)
No, they're just a middle man. They own nothing of exceptional value on Youtube. The high value stuff is owned by others and they have agreements in place for revenue sharing on the ads. It's like everything else in their portfolio - they're really just a middle man.
Does Starbucks grow coffee? Of course not - they offer free seating and wireless connections in thousands of locations for the purpose of packaging and selling high-markup derivatives of coffee beans. If you a whole class of people started bringing in their own coffee, or a cup and a full thermos of their favorite beverage, that Starbucks location would lose out on a potential sale and upper management would start inquiring why they were always packed but their sales numbers sucked.
Doesn't Google get it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't Google get it? Microsoft is ABOVE all rules and standards.
What a joke. If Google wasn't living up to a Microsoft EULA the whining from Redmond would be unbearable where I am at from Indiana.
While there is cross-corporation wank going on here it does seem that Microsoft arrogance is coming out here again.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Your implication is that Google is being evil because they're preventing Microsoft from taking market share from Google by using Google's services. It's hard to imagine a more one-sided and asinine analysis.
I think Microsoft are just upset they're screwgled because nobody wants Windows 8 or Windows phones and everyone knows it.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that Microsofts application isn't using publicly available API's, they are abusing YouTube and violating their terms. Just because Google doesn't provide API's to allow you to make something that meets their conditions doesn't mean you may violate those conditions. It simply means Google doesn't want to present YouTube through anything but their own applications.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:5, Insightful)
If this it what will take Microsoft to get more traction in the mobile market, so be it.
A Youtube client that blocks ads and allows downloads, what else could we ask for??
Who's being evil now???
Evilness doesn't really come into it... Microsoft has written software that uses a third party service in a way that that third party's T&Cs disallow. You're free to avoid services on the grounds that you don't like their T&Cs, but you don't get to just ignore the T&Cs, especially when you're operating commercially.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well said!
This is similar to making a DVD player without region locks - it makes the player much more useful for its actual users, but pisses off the movie distributers because they want to control how the DVDs are used. In this case, Microsoft has created a youtube player that is better for the user in two important ways (no ads, which the user doesn't want to see, and the ability to store the video for later). This is something I would have expected the open source world to provide; I'm amazed to see a company like Microsoft do it. But I'm sure the programmers responsible for making this user-friendly (in the right sense of the word, not the "ooh shiny" sense) program will soon be punished for his obstinacy.
The ability to block advertisements and download movies is provided by web browser addons, so people championing Google in its fight against this windows phone program would also have to come out against those addons. I hope that isn't as prevalent a view here as it seems from most of the comments so far.
Re: I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally I'd agree, but in this case it really seems like Microsoft is trying to meet the needs of their customers and Google is not cooperating with them in an attempt to squeeze them out of market share. I'm all for sticking it to M$, but when it hurts the consumer ultimately that really makes Google no better than they are.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, wait a minute now. If it was some bunch of open source geeks making an app that download's YouTube videos and strips the advertisements, and Google came down as hard, I think we'd hear squeals of outrage and demands for Google not to be "evil".
But because it's Microsoft, fuck them, right?
Now, I can understand this sentiment completely, but let's not pretend that this same "one-sided and asinine analysis" has not been used by everybody on every side of these issues.
At the bottom, this is why having a company control the ecosystem for any platform is a very bad idea. Because we want little companies trying to make things more useful by breaking big companies' models. That's how progress works. The notion that we have to create some protected reserve where the biggest companies can enjoy guaranteed success forever without having to face any competition is really what's asinine.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, wait a minute now. If it was some bunch of open source geeks making an app that download's YouTube videos and strips the advertisements, and Google came down as hard, I think we'd hear squeals of outrage and demands for Google not to be "evil".
But because it's Microsoft, fuck them, right?
The nature of the difference is in the purpose or intent of the work, which in this case is to permit violation of Google's AUP for Microsoft's profit (no one will take them seriously without Youtube access.) Specifically, Microsoft has willfully taken these actions for financial gain.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:3, Insightful)
And you fail to see how that is a problem, right?
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
When this is exactly what Microsoft has been doing to everyone else for the past 20 years? Yes, I do fail to see this as a problem.
Karma's a bitch.
Re: I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Their customers can use the YouTube website - same as everyone else who doesn't have a pre-built app installed or for their platform. Just because you can hack YouTube's website and write a wrapper around your hacks to provide the content doesn't mean its legit.
Isn't accessing web content through means other than the published API or intended URL a hacking offense with prison time after conviction?
Anyone else here noticed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the posts here are making arguments and suggesting actions that were exactly the same as the ones that generated loud complaints on Slashdot when it was about Microsoft using proprietary crap to lock out Linux/Open Source.
I don't like Microsoft at all, but supporting Google acting more like them is no answer either.
Slashdot is awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft creates a version of YouTube that blocks advertising, and still Microsoft is the scum of the known universe.
I agree that if Microsoft isn't respecting the terms for the API then they have to change it, but come on, Microsoft actually gave us an ad-free youtube client they are not the scum you want them to be.
Re: I can't wait to see this battle (Score:1, Insightful)
Agreed, MS is inherently right on this point, it's Google preaching about good actions and then acting badly. I'm no fan of Redmond but being irrationally in Google's corner happens to perturb me more. Screw that, when they're wrong, they're wrong, and Google is wrong on this.
Where are Carmen Ortiz's threats of incarceration? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is violating Google's terms of service, which according to the DOJ is a felony covered under the CFAA.
If it was applicable to Aaron Swartz ...
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:1, Insightful)
The government is a bitch too, and that's exactly Microsoft's game here. They don't care about the cease and desist directly. They care about using it as an illustration to the EU and US regulators that Google is using their dominance in one business to kill off competition in another.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the ads on youtube are so annoying and so disturbing, I had to install adblock and I'm not very happy about it. I feel like I should pay Google somehow back for using youtube, but when advertisement banner pops up over subtitles and I'm not able to read them, or 15 seconds intro delays me from watching 1 minute video I can not withstand it anymore.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Which might be a valid point if they didn't provide an application to access YouTube for their biggest rival: iOS. But they do, so apparently Google has no problem providing an application for a competing platform when there are a lot of people using that platform. I think the main reason Google doesn't make a YT-app for WP (or BlackberryOS for that matter) is because the market share is in the single digits and therefore it isn't worth the hassle.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:4, Insightful)
"However I'm not aware that Microsoft ever sued anyone for using a hidden API."
No. What would happen is MS would find out a competitor was making calls to a hidden API so Microsoft would go break it on purpose and issue a patch for their own software.
Welcome to the new world MS. It belongs to Google and Apple. You just live here.
Re:And the day comes when... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe 90% of Slashdot is having a 'Christian Scientist with appendicitis' moment.
There are two levels here. First, did Microsoft develop an app that users will like? Yep, sure, no question (as long as it lasts).
Second: are these users merely pawns in one battle of Microsoft's War on Google, or has Microsoft turned over a new leaf and embraced openness and Free Culture?
The answer to the second question gives clues to the motivations for the first. I'll give 9:1 odds that this app was only dreamed up as a negotiating piece for something Microsoft wants from Google. That's only a historical perspective - how I'd love to lose that bet, but I don't expect to.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's being evil now???
The company that's providing a way to view ad supported content, ad free, is being evil.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty sure the requirement to follow the ToS comes before any obligation on the part of Google to provide an API. "Having APIs available" isnt an inherent right, either.
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps. But this is the problem when their system patches limited transparency, they create the appearance they are making changes to simply maintain an advantage on the home field.
Microsoft doesn't elicit much sympathy when they complain about closed APIs because they were the masters at this game back when they ruled the world.
Re:Load of idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but slashdotters don't understand one simple thing:
COMPANIES ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS.
They blame MS for being/having been evil, sleazy, monopolistic and any other adjective they can throw at them. Google is "good" because they give us free stuff. And that free stuff is also good. "Boohoo microsoft was once mean to me and i hate them. The googly is my BFF 3".
They don't see that google is as monopolistic as they come. Buying everyone. And anyone they can't buy, they compete and put out of business. They own search, video distribution (in a sleazy way that pays fractions of a cent to "authors"), mobile communications, location, maps, google street view. They can (and do) go through your email. There's google voice so they can (and they do) listen to your phone. And a million things more.
But Google will, sooner or later, become "evil". Of course, a company can't be "evil". A company just "is". Larry/Sergei (assuming they're the "gooddoers") won't be at the top forever, and the top will, someday, change. The new management will see the kind of stuff they're sitting on. Half the planet's names, locations, browsing habits, call logs, emails, EVERYTHING you can ever dream of. How do we know they won't sell it to Syria, Russia or Thailand? For all we know, they give it up for free to the US government.
You can be friends with Joe Mechanic, the guy that's been fixing your car for the past 20 years, and you know he's honest and he's never failed you. Joe Mechanic is a person. Google is not. Microsoft is not. Any "BRAND" is NOT your friend.
So, in short. Companies aren't people. They can't be your friends. When you deal with a company, you do it in their own terms. Use them. Abuse them as much as you can, and move on to the next one. If someone else comes up with a better deal, go with them and don't look back. Don't let "20 years of good service" get in the way. It wouldn't matter to them (google pulls the plug in any services they want, whenever they want to). This is not being evil. This is just doing business. Just like when you switch brands in the supermarket.
Re:Anything to get more customers (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google modified the Chrome browser to strip out ads on/from Microsoft owned properties, Microsoft would have a fit. Anti-trust complaints in multiple jurisdiction, legal threats, political lobbying, chair throwing, the works.
So yes, fuck them.
Re:Repeat, Much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I can't wait to see this battle (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on your definition of evil. I personally consider my online privacy to be very important, and on that front Google out-evils the other two by a vast margin. Each of the three has their evil specialty, and there is plenty of evil to go around.
Re:Feels good (Score:5, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/1102/ [xkcd.com]
Yup...fastest growing...