Google has sent a cease and desist letter to Microsoft telling the software giant to step off of the Internet search giant's video streaming territory.
Specifically, Google is demanding Microsoft pull its Windows Phone YouTube application from its devices. That's because Microsoft allegedly violated the terms of service surrounding Google's YouTube application programming interface, commonly referred to as API.
In a letter obtained by Wired, Google's Francisco Varela, YouTube's director of platform partnerships, states the company not only harmed YouTube, but it has also harmed YouTube content makers who profit off of YouTube advertisements.
"These features directly harm our content creators and clearly violate our Terms of Service," Varela said. "We request that you immediately withdraw this application from the Windows Phone Store and disable existing downloads of the application by Wednesday, May 22, 2013."
Google has given the company until May 22 to withdraw the application from the Windows Phone Store and deactivate its use on Windows Phone devices. Google hasn't stated if it'll pursue further legal action if Microsoft doesn't meet its terms.
So what did Microsoft do?
Microsoft developed its own YouTube application - which was released on May 7 - to strip out advertisements embedded into YouTube clips and allows users to download videos in full. Both are considered violations to Google's terms of service.
But Google may not have given Microsoft much of an option when it comes to developing a YouTube platform. Microsoft, according to The Next Web accused Google of preventing the company from featuring a premium YouTube application on its mobile phone software. An allegation Google doesn't deny.
"We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8," Clay Bavor, product management director at Google Apps, said in a 2012 interview with V3. "If that changes, we would invest there, of course."
This isn't the first time the two tech giants have fought over a Google product: Microsoft's search engine, Bing, was caught mooching results from Google. Google CEO Larry Page hinted at the issue earlier today during Google's I/O developers conference, saying Microsoft is "milking off" Google's products.
