That app shows Youtube videos without ads. That seems like a clear violation of Youtube's TOS and I don't blame Google for being upset about it. Edit: I woulnd't flag the story though.
Had it been a Google startup, it may not have bothered me so much. I was using it way before Google brought it and now I am punished with a second class service for my choice of phone? That is just sad. :(
Just hope the same won't follow when Ubuntu and Firefox launch their phones.
See my comment in the other post.
The main issue is that partners that use revenue sharing couldn't restrict their videos from playing on WP devices that wouldn't generate ad revenue. Normally, you can block devices from having content if revenue sharing is unavailable, something Microsoft circumvented.
So, for years, Google's stated reason for lack of a Youtube client was that Windows Phone didn't have enough marketshare, and now suddenly it has so many users that it loses so many ad impressions because Microsoft's Youtube that the content creators are suffering because all the millions of freeloaders using Windows Phone?
i.e It doesn't care enough for the ad impressions on Windows Phone to itself make an app , but when MS does, the loss of the same revenue is the reason for sending the lawyers in and pulling the app?
In contrast, Yahoo Mail which is barely making any money by manages to make a nice one.
http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/yahoo-mail/f90f3...
And Vimeo has apps for both WP and Win8.
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/vimeo/ff8dadc8-8...
http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/vimeo/6608d199-0...
A few sites doing that wouldn't have any effect. Google would probably just remove them. How many websites it would take for Google to actually pay attention though? 20%? 30%? 50%?
You could certainly say, "I'll keep you blocked in robots.txt (or block by IP or whatever) until you show my ads", but you are unlikely to succeed in that, and then there are still the downsides of not being listed in search results to consider.