Microsoft has lashed out at Google, accusing it of providing the Windows Phone with second-class services compared to competitors Android and Apple.
Microsoft’s particular concern is the YouTube experience available to users of the Windows Phone, which vice president and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said in his blog was not “fully featured”.
“We continue to be dogged by an issue we had hoped would be resolved by now: Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering consumers a fully featured YouTube app for the Windows Phone,” stated Heiner.
Heiner said that this has given its competitors an advantage, given that YouTube was among the most downloaded apps in 2012.
“Just last month we learned from YouTube that senior executives at Google told them not to enable a first-class YouTube experience on Windows Phones,” he said.
These accusations are just the latest for Google, which spent most of 2012 fighting antitrust allegations in Europe and North America.
The European Commission has already warned Google it could face enforcement action unless the company addresses its business practices, with the commission said to be working on an enforceable legal order to address competition law concerns.
In the United States however, Google has been shown more leniency, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, ready to close its investigations should the company voluntarily make a number of commitments to reform its behaviour.
“Unfortunately, this agreement appears to be less demanding than the pledge the U.S. Department of Justice received from Apple and Microsoft nearly a year ago,” Heiner said.
Google called Microsoft’s outrage as “little more than sour grapes by one of its competitors”.
