The ongoing battle between Amazon and Google has gotten to a new chapter.
This story began back in September when Google pulled YouTube from the Amazon Echo Show, saying that Amazon’s implementation went against Google’s terms of service thus creating a broken user experience. Amazon then made a hack and got YouTube back on the Echo Show, but Google pulled it again not too long after, saying that it was pulling YouTube because Amazon didn’t sell Google products like the Chromecast and Google Home. Google also said that it’d pull YouTube from Amazon’s Fire TV devices on January 1, 2018.
A screenshot was gotten from a report showing Amazon redirecting users who were looking for the video platform to its Silk browser (or Firefox if you have it installed) in order to access YouTube.
Although, YouTube had originally said that it was not going to remove the app until the 1st of January, 2018, the app appears to be removed but it is still uncertain if it was Amazon that deactivated the app or Google that was responsible for removing the app from the streaming box. In a statement, Amazon didn’t clarify if it pulled YouTube off the Fire TV early. An Amazon spokesperson said that:
“YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV.”
Recently, Google and Amazon’s battle seemed like it may be coming to an end. Two weeks ago, reports stated that Google commented on the fact that the companies were in “productive talks” as Amazon started selling Google Chromecast devices and regarding YouTube in the Echo Show and Fire TV. Now it looks like those discussions may not be as productive as we thought, because the YouTube app on Fire TV devices is no more.
