YouTube app for Windows Phone taken down just a day after return - Los Angeles Times
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YouTube app for Windows Phone taken down just a day after return

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A YouTube app that returned for the Windows Phone this week didn’t stay there long. It was taken down by Microsoft after YouTube said the update still violated its terms of service.

“Google [which owns YouTube] is blocking our updated YouTube app for Windows Phone,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We are working with them to resolve the issue.”

It’s unclear exactly when the app became available for download, but it couldn’t have been more than one full day at most.

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“We’ve been working with Microsoft to build a fully featured YouTube for Windows Phone app, based on HTML5. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not made the browser upgrades necessary to enable a fully-featured YouTube experience, and has instead re-released a YouTube app that violates our Terms of Service,” YouTube said in a statement. “It has been disabled.”

Because YouTube had not announced plans to build an app for the Windows Phone mobile operating system, Microsoft last May decided to build one on its own.

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But YouTube said Microsoft failed to build the app in a way that YouTube deemed appropriate, notably because it could not have ads. That led Microsoft to take down the app.

After three months, Microsoft released a revamped YouTube app earlier this week, this time with ads. But YouTube said the app still failed to comply with its requirements and once again asked Microsoft to remove it.

Unless Microsoft changes the way it is building the app, Windows Phone users should not hold their breaths. However, users can still go to YouTube.com using the Web browser on their Windows Phone device to access the Google-owned video service.

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