Microsoft attacks rival Google over phone app

Internet giants Google and Microsoft have become embroiled in a bitter argument after the debut of a new YouTube app for the Windows Phone was blocked by Google just days after its release.

The ban will be a blow for Windows, which only recently publicly thanked Google for its ‘support’ over the release of the new app. Google, which owns YouTube, said the new YouTube app was disabled after it was discovered it was not built using HTML5, thus breached Google’s terms of service.

In a statement to Mashable, Google said:

“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.”

This year has seen the two moguls at loggerheads for a number of issues, including when Google criticised Microsoft for failing to include advertising on the YouTube app for Windows Phones. Mobile is becoming increasingly important to YouTube, as reports reveal it accounts for over 1bn views a day and 25% of its global watch time.