Google and Microsoft embroiled in bitter row over YouTube app

At the time of the Google takeover, YouTube had an estimated usage of 50 million worldwide. (Rex Features)

Google and Microsoft have become embroiled in a row over the Windows Phone YouTube app.

The fall out began when Google requested that their YouTube app be installed using HTML5 code language on the Windows Phone, but was told by Microsoft that this was not possible, the BBC has reported.

In response, Google blocked Windows Phone users from watching videos on the app because it violated terms of use.

The move by Google has led to Microsoft lawyer David Howard creating a blog post entitled 'the limits of Google's openness', requesting that Google unblock the app on the basis that Microsoft has already addressed their points before they re-launched it.

"We know that this has been frustrating, to say the least, for our customers," the blog post reads.

"Google’s objections to our app are not only inconsistent with Google’s own commitment of openness, but also involve requirements for a Windows Phone app that it doesn’t impose on its own platform or Apple’s (both of which use Google as the default search engine, of course).

"Google asked us to transition our app to a new coding language – HTML5. This was an odd request since neither YouTube’s iPhone app nor its Android app are built on HTML5. Nevertheless, we dedicated significant engineering resources to examine the possibility.

"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."

Google has defended its actions, arguing that Microsoft had not made the browser upgrades necessary "to enable a fully featured YouTube experience" and had instead re-released a YouTube app that violated their terms of service.

Google's statement said: "We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines".

Microsoft's first attempt at building the YouTube app came in May, which Google said did not correctly display adverts correctly. The two companies did agree to work together to develop a new version, but their relationship broke down over the the HTML5 web coding standard.